Rosemary Lemon Sourdough Bread

Rosemary Lemon Sourdough Bread

I have not been making bread for the past week and supplies in the freeezer was down to the last quarter portion of a whole-wheat boule which I had made a week earlier. My son has been bringing sandwiches to school for lunch recently. He came back one day saying that his classmate sampled the bread and wanted to buy some. I am happy to see the bread consumed quickly these days.

For the last 2 weeks, I have been feeding my rye starter diligently and since my Rosemary was looking very bushy, I decided to harvest it to make some Rosemary Lemon bread. I had wanted to try out with Thyme and Terragon but decided to stay with the Rosemary.

The bread was made in the time intervals when I was in the house. It was a busy day for me as I had to help my son with the logistics of organizing a BBQ for his uniformed group and coupled with sending my wife and daughter to their classes, I thought the bread was not going to make it. The bread was slightly under-proofed as I had to rush out to pick up my daughter. However, it turned out better than I had hoped. The bread had a pleasant Rosemary aroma with a hint of lemon.

I used 4 stalks and the zest of 1 lemon with 50oz of flour. The hydration was slightly over 70%. The slash pattern was that of a cluster of Rosemary leaves.

Levain Bread with new rye starter

After a week of feeding, the culture was ready to do some work. I was planning to bake the bread at 9.00 pm last night but after mixing the dough, I realised that I was going to finish late into the night. I had already done a previous baguette bake earlier in the afternoon and after a whole day of playing with my new electric guitar, I was feeling a little tired.

It was a good chance to see if the culture can withstand a night in the fridge. When I woke up in the morning, I was hoping to see the dough reach the top of the container. I was disappointed to see the dough barely a third of the container. I had no choice but to let it continue on the kitchen counter.

After about 2 hours, it was ready to shape. I tested it out on 2 different shapes.  They looked beautiful when they came out of the oven. As it came out around noon, I was able to photograph them outdoor in natural light. The results were much better than the usual photographs I take in the kitchen at midnight.

Rye berries looking like grains of rice

The active bubbly starter with chunky bits of the rye chops

Rye Starter

I chanced upon some organic rye berries  recently. It was something new and this was a chance for me to play with building a new sourdough culture. The rye berries were ground up and some water was added into the container. It was able to double without any additional flour. Since it was active and well, I fed it with a teaspoon of flour and it doubled in 3 hours. The starter had a very pleasant aroma and it looks promising for making some sourdough loaves out of it. I have never started  a culture with rye berries so it would be interesting to see how this new culture works out.

I had cultured a starter out of organic wheat berries before and it was so easy to make that I did not even bother maintaining the culture. Instead, I maintained my Carl's sourdough culture faithfully. This was more for sentimental reasons than for the fact that it was reputed to be 150 years old. It was sent over the mail to me by Charles Perry from Carl's friends and I received invaluable advice from him.