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Ontario, Canada
I am a wife, mother and grandma who enjoys the many aspects of homemaking. A variety of interests and hobbies combined with travel keep me active. They reflect the importance of family, friends, home and good food.
Cook ingredients that you are used to cooking by other techniques, such as fish, chicken, or hamburgers. In other words be comfortable with the ingredients you are using.
--Bobby Flay

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Please watch this area for important information like updates, food recalls, polls, contests, coupons, and freebies.
  • [March 19, 2020] - Effective Mar 17, this blog will no longer accept advertising. The reason is very simple. If I like a product, I will promote it without compensation. If I don't like a product, I will have no problem saying so.
  • [March 17, 2020] - A return to blogging! Stay tuned for new tips, resources and all things food related.
  • [February 1, 2016] - An interesting report on why you should always choose organic tea verses non-organic: Toxic Tea (pdf format)
  • Sticky Post - Warning: 4ever Recap reusable canning lids. The reports are growing daily of these lids losing their seal during storage. Some have lost their entire season's worth of canning to these seal failures! [Update: 4ever Recap appears to be out of business.]

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Monday, April 26, 2021

Working the Lame

The art of sourdough making is truly that, an art form.  This delightful bread truly is the bread of 2020 when so many couldn't find yeast so decided to try this older method using wild yeast.  The yeast actually comes for the flour used, not the air.  In general, rye flour has the highest yeast content but rye flour is hard to find in smaller communities so most resort to using whole wheat flour.  Unbleached white flour will work but bleached flour will not.  You must use filtered water or non-chlorinated water as well as chlorinated water will kill the yeast.

 

Traditional sour dough uses a starter, flour, water and salt.  That's it.  That was one of the appeals of this bread for the first part of the pandemic.  However, a good sourdough bread will take 18 to 24 hours or longer before baking.  Once ready for baking, the bread must be slashed.  This allows for a higher rise and expansion of the dough while baking.  A good simple tool to make small cuts are kitchen sheers but if a lamb is better.

The lamb is a handle that holds a straight edge blade.  The straight edge may or may not be replaceable.  I highly recommend one with a replaceable blade.  They aren't expensive, about $12 and replacement blade will likely cost about $3 for a multipack.  The lamb should be sheathed when not in use and kept well out of reach of children.  

This tool is essential for fancier slashes like the spiral or heart as shown.  It takes a lot of practice which hubby doesn't mind given he gets the resulting bread.  Some slashes are rather fancy while others are plain but all add to that lovely artisan look of sourdough breads.  If you need inspiration for creative sourdough slashes, YouTube definitely won't disappoint!


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