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I Can Braid! and Sourdough, Day 7

So I decided to follow my friend Candace's suggestion and make challah bread out of Everything Bread (page 85).



There were a couple of differences I had from the recipe. The instructions said to use a cup of all-purpose flour and two or three of bread flour—well, I didn't have any all-purpose flour around; so maybe the bread will be a bit stiffer than the recipe. Then, the recipe suggested that the bread might take two hours to double in size, rising at room temperature. I let it rise for an hour, and then we had to run some errands so I put it in the refrigerator and let it rise until we came back about three hours later. It was doubled by then, so I just let it warm up a bit and proceeded with the rest of the instructions.

Only to hit a small snag. The instructions said, "Turn risen dough onto a floured surface," that's okay; "divide into 3 equal portions," I can do that; "and form a 3-strand braid." Umm, grind to a halt here. How do you form a braid? A quick lookup on DuckDuckGo.com later, I get an article on "Making Braided Bread" - the section on "Making A Braid." Yes! I'm saved! "Place the longest one in the middle and attach them together by pinching the tops of the strands and tuck them underneath the top edge." Good, I'm getting some actual instructions. "Start braiding the three strands as you would normally make a large hair braid" - this does not help. "If braiding is a challenge for you, take out a doll or Barbie and make her a hair braid to freshen your memory on the braiding technique." Sorry, that's even worse. Are they assuming that the only people who will want to make braided bread—or any bread—are women? I'm sorry, but that's just not fair.

Fortunately, there was an illustration, and after poring over it for a few minutes, I got a decent idea. I came up with this:



What do you think?

On another note, I'm a bit concerned with my sourdough starter. It's looking awfully watery and thin. Is it supposed to be like that? It used to be thick, kind of gloppy and gooey. I'm not seeing that at all. I'm not sure if something's going on. But I'll keep going according to instructions and see how we are by day 10.
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Comments

  1. PlumtreeJuly 4, 2011 at 10:53 PM

    ROFL that you got this far in life without braiding!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 5, 2011 at 1:12 AM

    For your next batch of starter try stirring it every time you're near it. In Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads he explains how someone did some experiments and discovered that aeration of the starter helps a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Matt GJuly 5, 2011 at 5:18 AM

    @lumpynose,

    Thanks for the suggestion. I was following the recipe which specifically said "stir once per day". Maybe I'll try the other way and see what that changes.

    @Plumtree,

    I'm a guy. What did I need to braid anything for? :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. DanJuly 5, 2011 at 9:45 PM

    When was the last time you fed your starter? I always had the opposite problem. My starter would get too thick. There must be a happy medium in there some where.

    ReplyDelete

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