Monday, September 1, 2014

San Joaquin Sourdough Bread in a Dutch Oven-Camping In Style

For the past 5 months, my husband and I have been living in a yurt on Orcas Island as our home is being built on the same property.  It is an adventure every day.  Today's adventure was baking bread in a dutch oven over charcoal.

I had been thinking about making this bread for several months as its process lends itself well to a lifestyle with few utensils. I did use a Brod and Taylor proofer to maintain temperature for the bread during the fermentation periods.  The recipe for this bread can be found on http://www.thefreshloaf.com, a wonderful site for all things bread related.  We used a 10 inch dutch oven when baking the bread and brought the temperature to 450F before placing the loaf in the oven.  The bread baked for 30 minutes with a 180 degree turn of the dutch oven about half way through baking to ensure even temperature.  I also improvised on the timing once the loaf was taken out of the fridge from its overnight rest.  I left it out at room temperature for an hour, shaped the loaf, then placed it in a well floured cloth lined bowl and fermented it for 1 1/2 hours at 72F before baking.

Here's the resulting loaf -

The crumb on the loaf is glossy and open -

This is a very flavorful loaf due to the addition of a small amount of dark rye flour and its 12 hour 'nap' in the dorm-sized refrigerator overnight.  We will be enjoying this with some chicken soup later this evening.  Bon Appetit!

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