Paulchens FoodBlog?!

bbd #39 – Salt Rising Bread hosted by easier than pie
Deadline: May 1st, 2011

It’s been a while since I participated regularly in bread baking day but when I read that this month’s theme was salt rising bread I was too curious not to give it a try.

I remember that Mary (The Breadchick) threatened the Bread Baking Babes with making us bake this bread so I wanted to know what it was all about.

There are two different kinds recipes offered by “easier than pie” – I decided to go with the second which uses some kind of milk as the base of the starter…

salt rising bread #2

adapted from the american woman’s cookbook-wartime edition, 1944
2 loaves

starter
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons stone ground cornmeal-whole grain cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar

• heat the milk but it is not necessary to get it hot, stir in the remaining ingredients.
• cover the bowl and place it somewhere warm-again i used my oven for this step.
• let it rise until it starts to get bubbly-the recipe states this will happen in 6-7 hours, i let mine go almost 24 hours to get it bubbly.

sponge
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons shortening, oil or butter-melted and cooled if solid
2 cups all purpose flour

• add the ingredients to the starter and mix until smooth.
• allow the sponge to rest, covered, in the warm spot until it gets bubbly-mine took about 4-6 hours.

dough
about 3 cups all purpose flour

• stir in about 2 1/2 cups flour to make a soft dough.
• using some more of the flour, turn the dough out onto a floured  surface and knead it until smooth and no longer sticky-about 5-10 minutes.
• shape into loaves and place into greased loaf pans.
• place the pans in the warm spot and let them rise until doubled.
• bake at 350 until golden brown, 45-55 minutes.
• turn out of the pans and cool on a rack.

I kinda liked the crumb of this bread and right out of the oven still warm it was fantastic with butter and a little salt or honey. What I did not like about this bread is that it went stale very quick – too quick in my opinion. It wasn’t extraordinary tastewise too so I think I might not bake it again tho I am thinking I might get my hands on the “stinky” starter – just because I want to know…

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I send this over to Susan’s Yeastspotting.
YeastSpotting is a weekly showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient.
If you are not familiar with YeastSpotting just scroll the archive and you’ll know what I am talking about.
To submit your post simply klick here!

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