Table of Contents
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Name: Angel Jiang
Date and Time:
Location: My apartment
Subject: Feeding Sourdough Starter
Received sourdough starter in class today (c. 2:10pm). Carried sourdough starter with me to classes. Starter had expanded until the lid of the container popped off. Placed sourdough starter in the refrigerator at 5:15pm, removed it at 6:15pm.
Materials:
½ cup sourdough starter
½ cup all purpose white flour
½ cup water
Glass mason jar
Procedure:
Mixed together ½ cup sourdough starter, ½ cup flour, ½ cup water in bowl and mix until combined thoroughly
Transferred mixture to glass jar and covered with cloth
After 4 hours, sealed jar and refrigerated
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Name: Angel Jiang
Date and Time:
Location: My apartment
Subject: Preparing dough for baking
Recreated John Evelyn’s recipe for “The Best Bread of France” (translation by Ullman)
The best Bread of France
There is of this [both] white and brown & of all [1 word illeg]: take six Bushells of flower (or at lesser quantity you please) of which put leven to a first part at eight a clock at night; then add as much more flower to it; this is called refreshing the leven; The next morning early, make your dow with the remainder of the meale but temper it moderately, or very little; then turne the Dow, and put it in a wooden bowle, sprinkl’d w[i]th flower to keep it from sticking; & when it is ready to get in the oven you shall [stowe] it into another bowle. That when it is set into the oven with your [poole] the right side may stand upmost.
Recipe materials from John Evelyn’s recipe:
six Bushells of flower
More flower
Wooden bowle
Another bowle
I simplified the recipe as follows:
Take six bushells of flower (or less, if desired), and set out to leaven at 8pm. Add flower to feed the leaven. The next morning, make dough with the rest of the mixture but mix it only a little bit. Fold the dough and put it in a wood bowl sprinkled with flour to keep the dough from sticking. When it is ready to get in the oven, put it in an oven-safe bowl. Set it in the oven.
Notes:
“Leven” is leaven.
To “temper” means to dilute, moderate or soften; hence, to “temper” moderately would mean to mix together the ingredients moderately.
I used the following supplies and ingredients:
150g sourdough starter for “leven”
250g unbleached king arthur’s bread flour for “six Bushells of flower” and “more flower”
125ml water
Stainless steel mixing bowl instead of “wooden bowle”
Procedure:
Removed sourdough starter and set on countertop in kitchen (c. 75 degrees F) for two hours
Weighed starter, flour, water on kitchen scale and combined in stainless steel mixing bowl
Combined starter, flour and water
Kneaded mixture for 15 minutes on clean countertop, folding and tossing
Set mixture back inside stainless steel bowl to prove
Placed damp towel on top of bowl
Proved for 4 hours on countertop
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Name: Angel Jiang
Date and Time:
Location: My apartment
Subject: Baking bread
Procedure:
Removed bread mixture from refrigerator (left to prove overnight) and placed on countertop for 2 hours to prove further
Shaped bread on clean countertop
Pre-heated oven for 20 minutes
Put dish of water inside oven for moisture
Baked bread for 60 minutes
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Notes: I have a small, weak oven. I checked the loaf (without opening the oven) after 30 minutes, observed that it was still pale and not browned, and checked every five minutes after that. This small loaf took an hour to brown.
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Name: Angel Jiang
Date and Time:
Location: My apartment
Subject: Making molds
I followed the recipe “For Casting in Sulfur” from Bn Ms. Fr 640.
Bn Ms. Fr 640, fol. 140v translation:
<ab>
To cast neatly in <m>sulfur</m>, arrange the pith of <m>bread</m> under the brazier, as you know. Mold whatever you want into it & let it dry & you will have very neat work.</ab>
Procedure:
Removed bread from oven and immediately sliced while bread was hot out of the oven
Pressed mold with a dinosaur figurine and a small, flat shell
I created two one-sided molds.
Notes: I did the molding when the bread was fresh out of the oven because the recipe indicates that “whatever you want” molded should be let to dry. The recipe in Bn Ms. Fr 640 for “Molding and Shrinking a Large Figure” also states to mold with a “bread pith, having come from the oven.”
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Name: Angel Jiang
Date and Time:
Location: My apartment
Subject: Removing objects from bread molds
Removed objects from both molds. Both objects were easy to remove. The mold looks even and ‘neat,’ as promised.
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Name: Angel Jiang and Michael Assis
Date and Time:
Location: Chandler 260
Subject: Casting Bread Molds
Materials for casting with beeswax
Beeswax
Hot plate
Chopsticks
Small stainless steel cup (specifically for beeswax - do NOT use this for any other material)
Ceramic plate (for holding molds)
Procedure:
Placed bread molds on ceramic plate. I sliced my bread mold on both sides so that it would lay flat on a surface.
1:22pm. Turned the hot plate on low.
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1:22pm. Poured beeswax into stainless steel cup to begin melting. We used about a centimeter high amount of beeswax, estimating that it would be enough to cast two small molds.
Placed the cup on the hot plate
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Name: Angel Jiang and Michael Assis
Date and Time:
Location: Chandler 260
Subject: Coating bread mold with linseed oil
Procedure:
Line bread mold with linseed oil using a paintbrush (designated for oils and oil paints)
Additional notes:
We choose to coat one mold with linseed oil and leave the other one bare so that we could see if and how coating in linseed oil affects the molds. I decided to coat my mold that had finer and smaller details because I anticipated that the oil would aid in removing the bread from the cast beeswax or sulfur.
We found that the bread absorbed some of the oil. I used more linseed oil than anticipated.
Linseed oil has a strong odor! It smells a bit like rancid oil and reminds me of gasoline. It’s not especially an acidic or sharp smell, but it is definitely pungent.
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Name: Angel Jiang and Michael Assis
Date and Time:
Location: Chandler 260
Subject: Casting molds in sulfur
Materials:
Hot plate
Sulfur for casting
Stainless steel cup
Stainless steel bowl with sand
Ceramic plate (for holding bread molds)
Bowl of sand
Laser thermometer
Procedure:
Placed our bread molds (I used the side with a shell impression) in a bowl of sand
Sulfur was already heated, we simply poured the sulfur into our molds
Poured quickly, without pauses, until mold was filled to the brim
Additional notes:
All of the following steps took place with equipment inside the fume hood
We did our casting based on availability at the beeswax and sulfur stations, not according to a predetermined order.
We used leftover sulfur that had been melted by Tillmann for a previous group.
The bread molds for sulfur were NOT coated in linseed oil.
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Name: Angel Jiang and Michael Assis
Date and Time:
Location: Chandler 260
Subject: Casting molds in beeswax
1:43pm. Returned to beeswax station to cast molds in beeswax. Turned hot plate onto heat setting 1. Began melting beeswax on hot plate.
1:44pm. Beeswax at the bottom of the cup begins to melt. Consistency is clumpy.
1:45pm. Molten beeswax is visible and is a transparent, golden color compared to the light yellow solid beeswax. Process is similar to melting butter.
1:45pm. Turned heat on the hotplate up from 1 to 3.
1:47pm. Beeswax is all melted and ready to be poured.
1:47pm. Poured beeswax quickly into my mold in one go.
Additional notes:
Beeswax melts quickly and easily at a melting point between 62-64 C.
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Name: Angel Jiang and Michael Assis
Date and Time:
Location: Chandler 260
Subject: Breaking sulfur molds
After casting both beeswax molds, we checked on our sulfur molds. The sulfur molds seemed to have hardened. My sulfur mold had crystalized on the surface. The green spot on the bread mold is mold, not discoloration from an oxidation of metal or a dye.
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1:52pm. Began breaking sulfur molds. The bread itself was easy to break, but after breaking off the majority of the bread from our molds, some bread still remained on the sulfur.
1:57pm. Prepared a glass of water to soak sulfur molds and placed both my sulfur mold and Michael’s sulfur mold inside the glass.
Name: Angel Jiang and Michael Assis
Date and Time:
Location: Chandler 260
Subject: Breaking beeswax molds
2:06pm. Checked in on the beeswax molds after breaking the sulfur molds. Tapped the surface of my mold gently and determined that it was solid.
2:07pm. Began breaking bread mold. This bread came apart much easier than the the sulfur bread mold, perhaps because we coated our beeswax molds with linseed oil. The surface of the beeswax figurine did not seem to be oily, despite coating the mold in linseed oil. The mold captured a surprising amount of detail, such as the texture of the figurine’s skin. The figurine’s arm, however, broke off during the process of removing the bread. (The arm is about 3mm in length and 1-2mm in width).
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