Pain au Levain – Pg. 38

· by · in Older Stuff. ·
AKA bread.  Or a delightful name for sour smelling goop you have to find a clever place to let rest for days on end lest the nosey animals get into it.  Or their delightful, ever-spreading fur… 

The starter is certainly different than any other bread we’ve done, I was surprised to find there is no yeast.  I know there’s yeast naturally in the air, so it seemed odd to me that you were supposed to put plastic wrap over both stages of the starter-  I guess in a bakery where bread like this would most often be made there is an abundance of yeast in the air, enough to permeate the dough during the last rising stages-  But in a house cleaned by an OCD woman (AKA me), I’m not sure there was enough. 

Hahaha I said permeate. 

The first stage was undeniably gross, that’s all I can say.  When you watch your husband scrape light snow-like mold off the top of flour and water that’s been sitting for four days you start to really wonder…  I’m going to eat this?  Really with that? 

Second stage.  Nasty.  But in a shockingly delightful way.  It smelled incredibly sour, not a smell I’ve ever experienced with dough, but then again I’ve never made sour dough bread.  Sticking your nose in that was like sticking your nose in yeast that’s been fermenting for twenty minutes and your jaw tingles and your eyes water.  It’s like a bug and one of those light-zapper things, you just can’t resist doing it over an over again.  It’s like pouring another glass of wine.  Those bottles are small anyway. 

Now this blob of dough is sitting on our humble little marble-ish slab, ready to be beaten and rest again before it’s next beating, wrapped lovingly in a towel and topped with another for again, many hours.  That made all my kitchen towels smell like a dog had pissed on them by the way, but hey, God love Tide. 

So after it’s many days of rest the dough was finally uncovered and turned onto the baking sheet, floured before turning over as instructed, and I have to admit the towel made for a cool texture on the dough.  I even got to cut the little cross deal on the top, sweeeeeet!  Pride in something kind of looking like the picture is enough for me, the glass is half full. 

And it baked!!! 

And it turned out really flat…  and stuck to the cookie sheet…  so next time I’m Pam spraying the shit out of that mofo.  Now admittedly, we used more whole wheat flour than we should have in at attempt to make it healthier, which I think may have been our downfall in this particular case. 

BUT the end product did look cool and had a wickedly sour taste along with a delightful crust on the bread from the water before the baking.  The process of the starter was fascinating in retrospect, and now that I know what to expect it I’d love to try it again.  We tossed the started I’d saved, I think I want to try the whole thing over and see if we can get a better product to save-  

3 responses to “Pain au Levain – Pg. 38”

  1. Oh man, if I could bottle air from my house-of-homebrewing and send it to you, you'd be all set. “My” Jason refers to open fermented products (i.e. beer or bread without deliberately-added yeast) as “gifts from the yeast fairy… Who is sometimes a moody bitch.”

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  2. I wish I even had a yeast fairy to be a bitch, but our house is apparently less than fermentacular 😦

    But! You bring a good point, my Jas was looking into starting home brewing so maybe our house will one day be yeast-a-licious!

    (yes I've already had two cups of coffee..)

    Got any good brewing tips?

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