Table of Contents

Breadmaking Field Notes

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.11, 04:00 pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 1

        For my first attempt at making bread, I decided to make a modern rustic sourdough bread. I wanted to get the basics of how bread is actually made before moving on to attempting a historical bread recipe. I also wanted to do a recipe that I could do in an afternoon as I am unavailable for most of tomorrow to work on it. I found a King Arthur Flour Recipe that suited my purposes:  https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2019/10/14/rustic-sourdough-bread . One thing that was good about this recipe is that it had instant yeast in it. While I would love to make bread relying only on my sourdough starter, it has been very behind on activating, so I’m not sure that I would be able to get any rise.

        I added about a cup of my starter to a mixing bowl with five cups of sprouted wheat flour, a cup and a half of water, two and a half tablespoons of salt, and a packet of instant yeast to a bowl. I mixed that together with my hands until I had a dough-like consistency, which was still fairly sticky. I then placed it in a greased mixing bowl and placed it in my proving drawer.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.11, 06:10pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 1

        I let the dough rise in the proving drawer for an hour and a half. I think it doubled in size, but I wasn’t exactly sure. I took it out and divided it in half and formed two log-like rolls. The texture was a lot less sticky.  I then placed it back in the proving drawer for another hour.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.11, 07:10pm

Location:  Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 1

        I preheated the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. I took the loaves out from the proving drawer. They had grown a bit, but were fairly flat. I coated them with cool water and then dusted with flour before cutting two diagonal slices in each loaf with a serrated knife. I then placed them into the oven.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.11, 07:45 pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 1

        I took the bread out of the oven after 25 minutes. They weren’t quite ready, so I put them in for another 5 minutes. They rose a little bit in the oven, but not significantly. Next time, I will need to be sure to knead more than just what is necessary to combine because the crumb structure inside was very closed, which is good for molding but not for eating. The crust itself is brown, but not as dark as I would have expected it to be; however, it is hard, and it sounded like it was cooked when I knocked on the bottom.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.12, 09:00pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 2

 I decided to try making my bread without any commercial yeast and only using my starter. I am still using a modern recipe to see if my starter will work at all: https://www.blessthismessplease.com/easy-sourdough-bread-recipe/ . I mixed a quarter cup of starter with a 1 ⅓ cup and 2 tablespoons of water, four cups and 2 tablespoons of whole wheat flour, and 2 and a half teaspoons of flour. The mixture was drier than I expected, I might have forgotten to add some water. I then let it rest for an hour before folding into something resembling a dough by taking the sides and folding it into the middle. I added a few handfuls of water so that it would come together better. I think this is because I used whole wheat and not all purpose flour.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.13, 09:00am

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 2

        I checked on my bread to see if it rose overnight. It did not seem to rise much. I think it still might have been too dry. I added more water and put it back in the proving drawer.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.13, 08:36 pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 2

        It looked like it still didn’t do very much, but I figured that it had had enough time to rise. I tried to follow the instructions to work the dough into a tight ball, but I really felt like the bread wasn’t working as planned. After I formed the ball, I let it rest for about an hour. I put the ball of dough onto a tray with parchment paper and scored it with a knife over the top to make a big x pattern. I was not very optimistic about how it would turn out as it didn’t seem to ever match any of the descriptions given in the recipe (for texture, level of rise, etc). I put water and flour over the top of the dough and let it bake at 450 for about 35 minutes. I thought that I would try to use this bread for the bread molding, so I sliced it open and realized that it hadn’t fully cooked through in the middle (although it was mostly cooked).

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.13, 10:00pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Sourdough Starter Attempt 2

        My first attempt at a sourdough starter was not included in my field notes as I had started it before the class had begun; however, when I had been making my second attempt at making bread, I realized that my starter was covered with lots of fluffy mold on the top. I knew that some colors of starter were ok and some weren’t, so I looked up what to do. It seems like people had a mixed consensus on what to do. It was covering most of the starter, so I didn’t feel comfortable in my ability to salvage the yeast without coming in contact with the mold spores. It seems the starter was not strong enough to fend off the mold. Unfortunately, I had to throw it out.

        I had been struggling with the starter, so I am taking this as a new start; however, this means that my starter will probably not be ready in time for the bread molding activity. I will need to use commercial yeast instead of starter for further recipes.

        To make this new starter, I am using the King Arthur Flour recipe. I mixed one cup of whole wheat flour with half a cup of water and let it sit on the counter.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.14, 09:00pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Sourdough Starter Attempt 2

        My starter did nothing overnight, which is disappointing albeit somewhat expected. I think my last attempt had more activity than this, but I am unsure how to compare the two (after all, my first attempt was not successful).

        I discarded all but half a cup of starter and added a cup of all purpose flour and half a cup of water. This mixture felt less watery than my previous starter had been. I’m not sure why, but I think it might be because of the whole wheat flour.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.15, 09:30pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Sourdough Starter Attempt 2

        The starter really rose after I gave it 24 hours, which is a great sign. It made it all the way up to the one liter marker, which is higher than my other starter made it. I feel pretty confident that I’m heading in the right direction. I took out a half a cup of the starter and mixed it with a cup of all purpose flour and half a cup of water. This mixture is more watery than it had been previously. I am not really sure what to make of it and I am worried I am headed in the wrong direction again.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.17, 03:30pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Sourdough Starter Attempt 2

        I had let the sourdough starter longer than 24 hours because it wasn’t doing anything, and I was afraid that I would end up diluting it if I tried to feed it more regularly (I think I had done that with the last one). I discarded all but half a cup of the starter and mixed in a cup of flour and a half cup of water. The discard was not bubbly at all but it had a weird smell to it. This time, it looks like it’s reacting a bit more when I looked at it about two hours later.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.17, 05:30pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 3

        Having tried to make two more modern versions of bread, I really wanted to try my hand at an early modern bread recipe. I ultimately chose a recipe of John Evelyn’s that I felt had the most instructions and quantities and that I could do in an afternoon. Since I am already relatively inexperienced with making bread, I felt that it would be better to have a recipe that left less to the imagination so that I could get as close to early modern bread as I could. I ultimately chose Pain Benit or Brioche bread. Brioche bread is fairly soft and squishy, so I thought it might have a nice crumb structure for molding as well.

        As I had to restart my starter and it’s not active yet, I had to resort to commercial yeast to make this bread. As brioche bread typically has other flavors in it to mask the sour taste of a sourdough starter, I figured that this wouldn’t be as bad of a substitution as it would be if I had tried to make a true sourdough bread.

        To make John Evelyn’s Brioche, I cut the recipe down to 2% of the original, using google to translate the measurements listed into ones that I could handle. As a result a bushell of flour would be 4 cups of wheat flour, a quarter pound of salt became 2 teaspoons, a pound of butter became .67 tablespoons for my purposes. To make my “leven,” I first activated my commercial yeast by mixing in one packet of Fleischman’s dry active yeast with a quarter cup of warm water and a tablespoon of sugar. This I then mixed with a cup of flour and a half cup of water to make a wet, sticky mixture. I then put this in the proving drawer to prove for two hours.

        In another bowl, I mixed together 3 cups of flour, one cup of water, one cup of cottage cheese (my interpretation of “new fresh curd-cheese”), two teaspoons of salt, and a tablespoon of softened unsalted butter. When this was combined with my hands to make a less sticky dough, I put it in the proving drawer with my leven.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.17, 07:30 pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 3

        After letting everything prove for an hour, I took out both dough mixtures and combined them into one bowl with my hands. This mixture was also fairly sticky and was a good in between. I then put it in the proving drawer to rest for another hour.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.17, 07:45pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 4

        I also decided to try to make a modern brioche bread. I wanted another sample of bread for the molding purposes, and it was difficult to find a sourdough recipe that would work for me both without an active starter and without a dutch oven. Since I was already making an early modern version of brioche, I thought that it would be interesting to compare the results of the early modern brioche to the modern brioche, considering how the ingredients have changed over the centuries. I found a recipe on Delish that best fit the time constraints that I had: https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a28848483/brioche-bread-recipe/

        To make the sponge of the bread, I added one cup of flour (I had to use all purpose flour for this recipe as I had run out of wheat flour) to the packet of Fleischman’s active dry yeast and a quarter cup of lukewarm milk. I noticed that although the later parts of the recipe differ, this is almost identical to the early modern version. After I mixed this, I put it in the proving drawer to prove for 45 minutes.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.17, 08:30pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 3

        After taking it out of the proving drawer, I kneaded it for 10-15 minutes. The dough was very sticky and it picked up a lot of the flour as I kneaded it. I kneaded it mostly in a v- like pattern where I used one hand to stabilize the dough and the other palming the dough up one side of the “v” before switching to go up the other side. I’ve seen bakers use this technique on the Great British Bake Off before.

        After I kneaded it, I formed a ball and placed it on my baking sheet. I let it sit for ten minutes, and I believe it got puffier. I then beat three egg yolks without water and brushed it on the top of the bread before baking it. I baked it at 425 for 35 minutes. When it came out the top was shiny. The crumb structure was still fairly dense, and it tasted like most other wheat breads that I had made so far. I’m not really sure what adding the cottage cheese really did to make this bread anything other than normal bread. Perhaps they would have used a flour closer to all-purpose flour.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.17, 08:50pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 4

        I added half a cup of sugar, six eggs, and salt to my “sponge” and mixed this with my hands for about ten minutes. The dough was incredibly wet and sticky, almost closer to batter but not quite. After it was a smooth and shiny mixture, I added in two sticks of butter, which made the mixture even more wet. I kneaded this with my fingers as well to fully incorporate the butter. This mixture was so wet that I had to keep it within the bowl. I found that the best method seemed to be pulling the dough up out of the ball and sometimes winding it around my hands as if it were rope I was trying to roll into a nice circle. Once it seemed that the mixture would pass the windowpane test, where I could stretch out a lot of the dough to see through it, I let it rest for an hour.

Name: Sophie Macomber

Date and Time: 

2021.May.17, 09:50pm

Location: Home Kitchen

Subject: Bread Making Attempt 4

        Once I had let it rest, I poured the mixture into two baking tins (I did not do the fancy rolling of dough balls as described in the recipe as I didn’t particularly care how the outside looked). I then brushed on a mixture of egg yolk and water to the top. I let this bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.

        This bread making attempt was my favorite taste wise. It was sweet, buttery, and light, and it didn’t have the strong wheat taste that all the other loaves had. The texture was fairly light, and it almost seemed more like a cake than a bread.