Day 34 out of 40

Yesterday I posted how I make Rye Sourdough starter using a scraping from my sourdough mother.

Then I mixed this sourdough seeded rye bread with dried fruits and baked it today. I used a recipe I wrote September 2018 when my friend Laurie gave us a big bag of Rye flour. I am quite motivated by food gifts. I am constantly writing recipes and notes down of what I make. I write how I make things because I do not want to forget. I want to have a record and keep them alive.

I can’t imagine what it is like to leave my home and country because of a war. I left my home and country when I was 19 years old. I moved to the United States to go to school. It was hard, but it was a happy occasion and I had a sense that I was entering a whole world of discovery and opportunities. Still I was leaving Brazil with two suitcases. I would return, many times, family could come, but that first departure was like no other.

I could not bring food or grandma’s cast iron bean pot with me, but I copied my mom’s recipe into a notebook — my heirloom. The same recipes I had copied many times that said “add flour until right” or “use 3-5 egg.” It was my job to rewrite them as a child when mom’s notebooks pages would start to follow apart. It was my connection home. I was preserving them for eternity or at least for generations to come.

The hope is that when we have to leave our homes, recipes are with us, they are part of us. We know we have them in us, in our heads and in our hearts.

Tomorrow I will join Amy Halloran and Chef Ken Fornataro for April Flours to benefit humanitarian work in Ukraine. We will explore what happens when we feel the rhythm of fermentation. We invite you to be with bread, and figure out your connections to baking in a loosely held community. We will meet at the beginning of the month and map a way to extract all the fuel we can from our stores; we’ll meet again at the end of the month and discuss our journeys.

The pass is $45 to support @wckitchen . Recording available and some great content is already up and it includes my sourdough primer . 

Opening session is free:

April Flours: History of Baking and Milling and the Significance of Sourdough in America – (Amy Halloran and Ellie Markovitch)
Apr 4, 2022 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88428193637
Meeting ID: 884 2819 3637
Passcode: AEFlours

I

Sourdough Seeded Rye with dried fruit

I started by refreshing making a rye starter from scraping and then feeing it at 100% hydration to mix this bread, which means I fed it equal parts of water and flour. I like ratios as you know, easy to remember: 1 part leaven : 3 parts water: 3 parts flour.

Make a pre-ferment or leaven

57g of starter seed (wheat or rye I used rye)

57g of rye flour 

57g of water

For the loaf:

170g of rye pre-ferment (fed and bubbly from above) 

510g water room temperature

510g of wholemeal rye flour

10 g of salt (2% of the flour amount) 

2 cups total of a mix of seeds and dried fruits (mix and match what you have I used flax, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, roasted buckwheat groats, raisins and dried fig and dried prune. 

1. Mix the pre-ferment
2. Mix water, rye flour, salt and seeds (it will be stiff paste ) and let it all soak together while your pre-ferment rises
3. When your pre-ferment has doubled and is bubbly , 4-6 hours later, depending on the temperature of your house, add too the flour/water/seed mixture and mix very well.
4. Pour into a greased 9 5/8 x 5 1/2 x 2 3/4 loaf pan or a 13x 4 loaf pan and let it rise for 3-4 hours til it reaches the top. Another option is to put in the fridge for an overnight rise (what I did today) because I was not around to watch the dough and rye can ferment fast. 
5. Baked in 475F for 45 minutes, internal temp 200F. You can add a pan with hot water in the oven to create steam. 
6. Wait 24 hours to slice the bread. I do when I can. I cut it hot and it was delicious.