To celebrate the Babes' eighteenth anniversary, Tanna, our Kitchen of the Month, challenged us to make Kathleen Weber's Della Fattoria Pain de Campagne.
Now, I have a love-hate relationship with making sourdough bread. When it works, I'm thrilled. When it doesn't, I curse the waste of ingredients, time, and effort.
This recipe calls for a firm starter. So, I did my research to see how to make this, and found a recipe on the King Arthur Baking Company website. It uses discard as a foundation, and I had some in the refrigerator, so i had nothing to lose (except my discard).
I followed the directions, and ended up with a large lump of dough that did absolutely nothing. Discouraged, I tossed it into the refrigerator until I figured out a disposal method. I went in search of a yeast-based bread instead. (To be honest, I'd rather bake with yeast than starter.) I came across Cathy's recipe for Easy Dutch Oven Pain de Campagne, so that's what I used. I made the Lemon-Rosemary filling, since I have both lemons and rosemary in the backyard. The bread worked out fine, although the filling was barely apparent. That's the way it goes sometimes.
Fast forward a few days. I noticed something strange happening to the firm starter I had tossed back into the fridge. Was it my imagination, or was the starter actually showing some activity? Well, yes, it was. I tried out my new 'toy' to bring it back to life, deciding to try again using the newly revived firm starter.
The resulting dough was lovely, but it didn't have as much oven spring as I would have liked. And, once again, the filling disappeared, although I would get hints of lemon with each bite.
It was an interesting experiment. In the end, I preferred the yeast bread version rather than the sourdough one, based on taste and texture (and success).
For the recipe and description of this bread, go to Tanna's website.
The other Babes made wonderful versions of this bread, so be sure to check them out.
- Blog from OUR Kitchen – Elizabeth
- Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen
- A Messy Kitchen – Kelly
- My Diverse Kitchen – Aparna
- Bread Experience - Cathy
- Thyme for Cooking - Katie
- My Kitchen in Half Cups – Tanna (Kitchen of the Month)
Not that I'm partial or anything, but I think both versions look great! It sounds like your firm starter just needed some extra time to develop.
ReplyDeleteThat's a cool toy for someone who's not in love with baking sourdough, lol! I'm very jealous. Your breads look great.
ReplyDeleteAnother baker with backyard lemons! Man, I wish! It was a little surprising how subtle the flavor was in the loaf, considering the aroma while baking. I guess that thin layer can only do so much. My first loaf was totally lacking any oven spring.
ReplyDeleteI’m with Kelly, I can’t even dream of rosemary and lemon in my backyard (it’s still covered with snow). And yes Karen & I are both jealous of you toy. However, both your loaves look great, good scoring and no big clots of rosemary in the dough. Great job.
ReplyDeleteNice toy.... and both breads look fantastic!
ReplyDeleteWhoa!! that is amazing about the starter. My firm starter was a lump as well. It did grow somewhat but very slowly. Very. Like you, I too voted to go with adding some yeast.
ReplyDeleteIt's also nice to not be alone with the rosemary/lemonzest slurry disappearing visually instead of "appear[ing] as a bright and delicious swirl along the underside of the crust" as Kathleen Weber claims.
You too have rosemary and lemons growing in your yard? I have to move. That sounds so much more attractive that mountains of snow.
Cool that you tried both sourdough and yeast versions. Happy Anniversary! Elle
ReplyDelete