Twenty five days after burying seven beetroots in Mike Knowlden's High Easter sourdough starter, I dredged them out of their purple goo and gave them a scrub. They have battled outbreaks of amazing, gloriously coloured surface moulds, and suffered the fluctuating temperatures of my kitchen on recent sunny mornings. They are soft and squidgy, although the inside remains intact. Their smell is powerfully yeasty, and combined with the muddy and fruity flavour of beetroots, is almost like paint - sharply sour and sweet with a twang of acetone. There is something reminiscent of soap, and associatively they bring to mind some of the more extreme hoppy IPAs around at the moment. They are unsalted, so as not to limit the action of the yeast. I have put three of them in a pot of live beetroot lactic brine, and I will roast a couple to see how caramelisation affects the sugar remaining post-fermentation.
A little roll of sourdough bread, from my Kernel IPA starter, triple proven, and with milk powder and butter in the recipe. Sliced horizontally and toasted, buttered and stuffed with Nutella, and finally sprinkled with sea salt, it makes an awesome variation on a pain au chocolat
Many seeded white and rye sourdough bread, from a Kernel IPA yeast starter.
Every time I make bread, the top gets stuck to whatever I prove in. It’s just a curse I guess. What I do get instead is a lattice of crunchiness, where the chambers filled by carbon dioxide in the rising bread get ripped open and baked. I also get the bits that pushed together forming curvy little ridges, which float free when the bread is baked. It doesn’t look like your pretty sourdough with nice clean slashes, but it makes up for it in the range of crunchy textures
A bread mother which i started a couple of days ago on the Nordic Food Lab boat. I stoneground red wheat, buckwheat and rye grain in this great wooden mill, and when i next checked it, it had formed a bright purple skin, and smelled of tangy and sweet mushrooms
A beer bread made with malted wholegrain, many-seeded flour and Kernel IPA levain, proved three times
About to dehydrate the skin that formed on top of chicken/hay/sourdough crust stock - a technique I was shown at Noma in January
Coffee Sourdough, Mark II. 55% hydration (70:30 water to aeropressed espresso), 3 proves
Coffee Sourdough bread, Mark 1 60% hydration (espresso and water)
From a one month old wild starter made with Aeropressed coffee and organic white flour
First coffee sourdough. A little wonky but with a nice roasted coffee aroma
Coffee sourdough, second prove (Taken with Instagram)
Sourdough baguettes for bahn mi BBQ
Sourdough for baguettes to make BBQ bahn mi. First prove
Cold-infused coffee in a sourdough starter, 2 weeks old, which has been fed coffee grounds and cold espresso
Sourdough starter crumpet
An experiment. Colombian coffee in wild sourdough starter. Watch this space, @dunnefrankowski
Sourdough starter getting ready for tomorrow’s bake.
Roast flour sourdough Mark II
Cool bread ‘waffling’ inspires thoughts of other patterns created by the textures of the proving bowl.
Roasted flour sourdough, mark II. This time I let the dough prove for a third time, for about 8 hours, and in a pudding basin lined with a cloth. I am trying to get a rounder loaf and will try various bowl shapes.
A slice of roasted flour sourdough