Sunday, February 3, 2013

Home Made Bread

I found this little book: Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish a few weeks ago and found myself truly inspired to make something delicious after reading all of the background information and many of the recipes inside.

I chose to make my own 'levain' which is also called a 'mother' or a 'starter.' It took a week of feeding my levain every day at 7am... the timing is very precise in this book which I thought would be a hard thing for me to stick with, but it ended up being kind of a relaxing ritual to start my day.
My big tub specially purchased for bread making!

Whole Wheat Flour
And warm water... that's it. The levain gets it's yeast naturally from the air over time.

A gray morning out my kitchen window.


I was so glad to have step-by-step instructions and pictures of what each step should look like. It takes a lot of the second-guessing out of the process. When doing something completely new, this makes it much easier.

The hand-mixed whole wheat flour and warm water.


The bubbly levain at an almost mature state! I think this was day four.
just look at those bubbles!!!

On day 6, yesterday, you can begin to use your mature levain in actual recipes! Again, there was a lot of exactly timed mixing, folding, proofing, cooking... but it wasn't too much. One step at a time gets you all the way to your goal, ya know?!



My first dough, ready for proofing overnight!
So here it is! My very first loaf of Pain de Campagne!
I'm so glad I rescued this dutch oven. It comes in handy all of the time!
yay!!!
A happy Sunday morning indeed!

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous3.2.13

    That is beautiful bread! Bring a couple of loaves to the beach. You will be an expert by then! Amy

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  2. Oh my gosh! What a fun thing to try. It looks like fun and looks so good to eat.Whole wheat flour--sounds like my kind of bread. You are amazing and do such interesting things. MaMaw

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  3. Ashley, tell Bryan thank you for the birthday call. My cell phone went completly dead. I did not know it was in need of complete charghing. Sorry, I will pay attention to it closer. I have a land phone, but of course that would cost you to use that number. Thank you both anyway. MaMaw

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