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Pastimes : Got A Great Recipe To Share???? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: William H Huebl who wrote (23672)	10/9/2012 2:00:26 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25073

Hi Bill, I'm still working on my sourdough. The starter is vigorous, it even bubbles away in the fridge, froths up when brought up to room temperature, the dough slightly sticky while I'm working it, but it still doesnt rise as much as I would like. It nearly doubles when I would like it to triple in size during the proving stage. I was buying Scottish Oatcakes, but the ingredients often seem to include stuff that I dont want. I have discovered they are easy to make. Rough Scottish Oatcakes. INGREDIENTS 225g (2.5 cups) oats. Grind up about a third of these in a food processor at high speed for a minute. The smaller grinds make a rough flour to dust the surfaces and improve binding. 1.25ml (1/4 tsp) bicarbonate of soda. 1.25ml (1/4 tsp) salt 15 ml (1 tbsp) unsalted butter. (or adjust above to suit). 160 ml of water. (I measure this on the scale. 1ml = 1gm, much more accurate then trying to determine the position of a meniscus. The recipe states 150 ml but I dont think this is correct, too dry ) METHOD. Preheat oven to 180 deg. C. Gas mark 4. Put the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix well. Keep half the ground oats separate for dusting and adjustment. Heat the butter and the water until the butter melts. Make a well in the dry mixture and add the heated liquid. Use a palette knife to mix everything. The mixture will initially seem a bit wet but the oats will soon absorb it to make a soft dough. Dust a clean work surface with ground oats, roll out the dough to about 5 mm thick. Use a cookie cutter or a glass to cut out approximately 2 inch circles of dough. Re roll the trimmings and repeat until all the dough is used. Space the the oat cakes over two baking sheets or use a rack (the easy method I use.. no turning). Bake the oat cakes, turning over every 5 minutes to stop them from steaming and becoming stodgy. When cooked they should be crisp and lightly golden brown. Cool on a rack. Will keep in an airtight container for up to 5 says. Note: I prefer them a little thick and chewy in the middle, & not golden brown.

To: William H Huebl who wrote (23672)	10/18/2012 8:04:58 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25073

Sourdough starter update. Experimental results. I use a starter made using water and a 50:50 mix of organic spelt and rye flour. No other ingredients are used to make the starter yeast cells hardy to that environment only. It been running for a few months now. Although the starter is very active, running amok on each new addition of flour and water, I still only get one good rise out of it making bread. The second rise runs out of steam, and I am used to running three rises to make fluffy bread without using any oil or fats. The bread I make does not use any salt or sweet ingredients like sugar. I wanted to know the effects of these ingredients. Previous reading suggested salt inhibited the yeast activity. naturally sugar would be expected to promote it. METHOD I put a level teaspoon of starter onto four wine glasses. I added a level teaspoon each of rye flour and spelt flour and a teaspoon of water to each glass as well. I then left one glass as is (control) added a quarter tspn of salt to the next, a quarter teaspoon of sugar to the next, and a quarter tspn of both salt and sugar to the final glass. The glasses were left in a warm place overnight. These concentrations of sugar and salt are high, much higher then would be seen in a normal bread mix. RESULTS The amounts used were small and the contents still liquid so no rising was seen. The activity was measured the next day (approx 8 hours later) by listening to the crackling activity from the carbon dioxide bubbles given off. The results were clearly different. The control was the least active one crackle every few seconds. The next most active was the salt mix. The sugar mix only was very much more active with a continuous stream of crackles. The salt and sugar mix was very active indeed. The most active of the four glasses. So it looks as if I will be adding a little salt and sweetness to my sourdough mix as I add the starter. The starter will remain without these extra ingredients to ensure its ability to react with the flour is maximized and it remains hardy to organic flour environment. I will maybe refine this experiment to repeat with small amounts of dough instead of the minute amounts in the wine glasses. The results were clear though.