Yesterday, I made a loaf of sourdough rye from Beard on Bread. The starter had been fermenting merrily away all week in my kitchen, so although I wasn't really feeling like baking, I had to.
The texture turned out better than any bread I've made before, and the flavors were good, but it's not remotely sour. Maybe this all has something to do with my lackadaisical baking methods?
Jon doesn't think he can bake, nor do his parents. I am always enlisted to bake holiday cookies because they think they can't bake. Which is silly. I believe that if you can read, you can bake. Probably well. Now, if you tinker with the recipes before actually following them once all the way through, you'd be a bad baker like me...
I really can't help myself. I modified the Beard recipe by using white whole wheat flour instead of the all-purpose called for in addition to the rye flour. I also decided to add a little yeast to my starter on day 3, instead of adding yeast to the dough on baking day, along with a little honey to feed them. I hoped this would combat the boozy dough flavors I usually get by giving the yeast time to develop a little.
I don't know where I went wrong, flavor-wise. I've had incredibly sour rye bread before, so I know it's possible. And the texture was really nice- substantial, without being dry, with a great crunchy crust. But it's just not sour. I'll do a little research, and try it again.
But for breakfast, it was pretty tasty. I ate it with a little butter and some awesome Austrian rosehip jam we found at the ethnic market.
The coffee is Ethiopian Yirgacheffe from Northwest Coffee. I ran out of their house blend last week, and happened to pick this one. The Yirgacheffe is milder than their house blend, and I'm not quite used to it yet.
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