Bread post #2: I used the sourdough starter and then I fed the little beast more flour and water like you’re supposed to and having looked over the two sourdough cookbooks Becca had recommended, I saw the pictures of the pumpkin cranberry bread, found that yes I had dried cranberries and canned pumpkin and the four mandarin oranges to squeeze the juice out of, and it was, Sold! Game on! (Yeah I like physical cookbooks better but instant gratification has its moments.)

Emilie Raffe’s Artisan Sourdough Made Simple does a good job of explaining what to do, how to do it, why you do it, and when you do it. Plus everything sounds really good.

I shot a question at Becca: am I right in thinking that there’s no butter, no fat, in sourdough breads period? She answered that other than some focaccias, pretty much as far as she knew, no.

Lesson learned number one: time it so that the 6-8 hour rising is overnight. You don’t want to be finishing up at midnight.

Lesson learned number two: probably I need to figure out how to cut the parchment paper so it goes nicely around the edges of the dutch oven it’s going to bake in without scrunching the stuff up like tin foil and am I going to have to cut it out of my bread when it gets done?

I’ll find out. It’s too late now.

Lesson number three: when she gives you the ingredients by weight or cup measure and recommends you go by weight and the 500g comes out to closer to four and a half cups not five, and you stick to the 500g, add in the juice, and think this is way too liquid, this can’t be right–it is. At the end of the process, including shaping the loaf on a bit of flour and the cranberries plumping out by baking time, it came out just how you’d want.

Both Becca and the book say absolutely do not cut into that loaf till it’s had an hour to cool, well, other than that little slice(s) you do across the top before it goes into the oven so that it can have room to expand.

Not devouring it immediately after anticipating it the entire day is going to be really hard. Those spices and flavors on my hands from kneading it–I was like, I have to wait how many more hours?

Lesson number four: it’s supposed to be best the day that it’s baked so maybe having it cool near bedtime wasn’t the brightest idea? See Lesson #1.

But homemade pumpkin cranberry orange sourdough bread with spices.

Yeah no, wasn’t going to wait till tomorrow for that.

(I have no doubt that if you want it faster and easier you could make its equivalent with yeast and regular dough and you could even mix some butter in. Boil or soak overnight but do something first though to make the cranberries soak up those spices and juice like mine did over the course of the day.)

p.s. Ten minutes to go in there, and it’s smelling divine and almost but not quite done.