Archive for the 'bread' Category

NYHS: Bridget’s Loaf Cake

Published on November 11, 2011 in 19th century, bread and new york. 2 Comments

The front cover of Mrs. Maria Sneckner-Lintz's Receipt book, from the NYHS archives.

 

This post is the first in a series of three celebrating the re-opening of the New York Historical Society.  We’re going to focus on examples from the NYHS’s culinary holdings.

Today, we’re looking at a beautiful manuscript from 19th century New York; beautiful both for its physical appearance, and for the important information it gives us about daily life in the city 100 years ago.

The book is written by Mrs. Wilbur Lintz (nee Maria Sneckner), who was born in 1817 and passed in 1889.  During her life, she decided to record her favorite recipes and culinary knowledge.   Overall, this book gives us a peek into what was being cooked in a middle-class, New York kitchen.

"Recipe book of Maria (Sneckner) Lintz (Mrs. Wilbur Lintz) b. N.Y.C. March 14, 1817 d. " Dec 27, 1889 at 135 w. 48"

Mrs. Lintz was a very organized woman; her cookbook is alphabetically indexed in a way that allowed her to add to her recipes over time.

Sneckner is an old Dutch name, and in that line, the manuscript features several traditional New Amsterdam-style recipes.  The recipe book includes three different recipes for New York Cakes, a cookie flavored with caraway.  In the Dutch tradition, these cakes were passed out to visitors on New Year’s Day; the practice of visiting on New Year’s was revived by the upper and middle classes of New York in the middle of the 19th century.

Additionally, this manuscript features recipes at the height of their fashion and modernity, like this one, at left, for Parker House Rolls.

These rolls were invented in the Parker House Hotel of Boston in the 1870s  and quickly became very fashionable.  ”They are made by folding a butter-brushed round of dough in half; when baked, the roll has a pleasing abundance of crusty surface. Recipes for Parker House rolls first appeared in cookbooks during the 1880s.” (Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2004)

Parker House Rolls.–One quart of cold boiled milk, two quarts of flour. Make a hole in the middle of the flour, take one half cup of yeast, one half cup of sugar, add the milk, and pour into the flour, with a little salt; let it stand as it is until morning, then knead hard, and let it rise. Knead again at four o’clock in the afternoon, cut out ready to bake, and let them rise again. Bake twenty minutes.–Mass. Ploughman.
—”Parker House Rolls,” New Hampshire Sentinel, April 9, 1874 (p. 1) (sourced from The Food Timeline)

The Parker House still exists, and still serves its famous rolls, as well as its other great creation, The Boston Cream Pie.

The recipe I found the most interesting is this one, for “Bridget’s Loaf Cake”:

 

 

I recognized this recipe as the one that Mark Zanger, the author of The American History Cookbook, identifies as the firsts explicity Irish recipe to appear in print in an American book.  He cites it as coming from Mrs. Beecher’s domestic Receipt Book (1848), and sure enough, it is the same recipe as in Mrs. Lintz’s manuscript:

The 1840s were a decade of dramatic increase in immigration to America, due in part to the famine that hit Ireland, decimating the primary food source of potatoes.  The political situation was far more complicated than just that, but the results was the emigration of about 2 million Irish to points around the globe; 1.5 million landed in American; and by the 1860s, one in every four New Yorkers was born in Ireland.

Many single Irish women immigrated here to take positions in domestic service, as there was an incredible demand for servant labor in American household.  As a result, “Bridget” became the generic, ethnically-charged term for a servant.  Bridget learned American cooking from her Misses; and in turn, influenced the American kitchen with cuisine brought from home.

Mrs. Lintz’s Loaf Cake recipe isn’t just important because of the cultural trend it reflects; but because she took the time to copy it from Mrs. Beecher’s Receipt book, it illustrates that this recipe was actually popular and it was being made in family kitchens.

***
Bridget’s Bread Cake
From Mrs. Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book, by Catherine Beecher, 1848.

Bake time and temperature from The American History Cookbook by Mark Zanger

For the bread dough:
3 cups flour
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast (or one packet)
1 cup warm water

This is a basic bread recipe I received from a great breadmaking class at the Brooklyn Brainery.  Frozen bread dough can also be subsituted.

Place water in a clean, glass bowl; sprinkle yeast over surface.  Whisk gently with a fork. Set aside.

Combine dry ingredients and oil, mixing with a fork.  Add yeast water, stirring to combine.

As the dough comes together, form into a ball and place on a clean surface.  Knead for 3 minutes, adding more flour or water as necessary.  A wet dough works well for this recipe.

Place in a bowl and cover with a clean towel.  Allow to rise for one hour.

For the Bread Cake:

3 cups sugar (you can use 1/2 cup brown and 1 cup white)
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1 nutmeg, grated (approximately 2-3 teaspoons ground)
1 tsp baking powder
3 medium eggs (or 2 large)
1/2 cup raisins

Using a fork, cream together butter and sugar.  Add nutmeg and baking powder, then eggs.  Mix until thouroughly combined.  Stir in raisins.

Add ball of bread dough to sugar mixture.  Combine throughly using your hands: first fold the dough into itself, incorporated the sugar mixture; then squeeze and mash the dough with you fingers until you have a dense, sticky batter.

Set aside and allow to raise for 20-30 minutes.  Butter two small loaf pans and preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake 15 minutes more.  Remove from oven and cool, in pan, on a wire rack.  Remove from pan and allow to cool completely on the wire rack, or serve immediately.

**

At these proportions, the Bread Cake came out super ooey gooey buttery sugary, to the point where it formed caramel on the bottom of the pan, like an upsidedown cake.  Overall, the texture was something like bread pudding.  I don’t think that was the intended result of this recipe, but I don’t think I care.  The texture is amazing and delicious.  Sadly, the caramel bottom stuck to the bottom of the pan, but I bet it would be even more awesome with it.

I wasn’t so fond of the flavor, though: heavy doses of nutmeg in my baked goods just make me think of the 19th century, but doesn’y hold any appeal to my modern taste buds.  If I were to make this again, I would use apples and cinnamon instead of nutmeg and rasinds.  I would line to loaf pan with parchment, so I could lift the whole thing out without losing the caramel, and I would serve it hot from the oven.  In fact, I think I might do just that.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Bridget's Bread Cake - not particularly photogenic.

 

Appetite City: Schrafft’s Cheese Bread

Published on October 27, 2011 in Appetite City, bread and new york. 20 Comments

Appetite City: Diners

I’m not old enough to know diddly about Schrafft’s, the New York City restaurant chain, first hand; but everyone who does always remembers the cheese bread.   There’s only one known recipe for the famous cheese bread and it looks like this:

This document was dug up by Joan Kanel Slomanson, the author of When Everybody Ate at Schrafft’s.  It gives the proportions to make cheese bread on an industrial scale; it seems like it would be simple to just scale it down, right?  Wrong!  The problem is the mystery ingredient: cheese tang!

So what is a cheese tang? No one seems to know, or remember.  It was allegedly produced by Kraft, and some researchers have gone as far as to call the Kraft company and ask about it.  No one has any memory of it’s existance. With the loss of cheese tang, Schrafft’s cheese bread is gone to the ages.

Hold the phone.  Time to do some deductive reasoning.  You know what else Kraft makes? Tang.  Like, orange Tang, that went up with the astronauts.  Tang is a bright orange, orange-flavored powder.  So perhaps cheese Tang is a bright orange, cheese-flavored powder.  Now in what Kraft product can one get bright orange, cheese-flavored powder?

This is my theory and I think it’s a good one!  At any rate, the bread made with Mac N’ Cheese powder is phenomenal and will be devoured within minutes of exiting your oven.  Should you have some left overs, toast it before consumption: it’s best warm.

***
Schrafft’s Cheese Bread
Adapted from the original Schrafft’s recipe, as reprinted in When Everybody ate at Schrafft’s by Joan Kanel Slomanson, published 2007.

1 package dry active yeast
1 ¾ cups warm water
2 tsp salt
1 ½ tsp sugar
1-2 tsp cheese tang (Kraft powdered mac and cheese)
3.5 cups flour
1 cup grated sharp cheddar 

1. In a large bowl, combine yeast and ½ cup warm water. Stir to dissolve yeast. Mix remaining water with salt; stir to dissolve.  Pour over yeast and set aside.

2. In another bowl, sift together flour, sugar, and cheese powder.
3. Add flour mixture to yeast and water, one cup at a time.  When the dough becomes hard to stir, turn out onto a floured work surface.  Let dough rest while you clean out the bowls.
4. Knead dough for ten minutes, adding more flour if necessary, until dough is smooth and elastic.
5. Butter a bowl and place dough inside; let rise until it has tripled in size, 2-3 hours.  Punch down risen dough and turn out onto work surface.  Sprinkle grated cheese all over.  Roll the dough up and knead just long enough to incorporate cheese.
6. Grease two loaf pans; plop dough inside. Cover each with a kitchen towel and let rise 45 minutes.  Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
7. Put loaves in oven.  After 15 minutes, turn down heat to 350 degrees and let bake for 10 more minutes.  Cool on racks.
***
P.S. – this bread is total munchies food!

 

 

Cocktail Hour: Beef Beer

Published on October 27, 2010 in 18th century, 19th century, beer, bread and new york. 0 Comments

The short story: I was doing research amongst the stacks at the New York Public library.  In the appendix of a large volume called Virginia Taverns, I found a recipe for a “American Strong Beer,” dated 1815.  I read on to discover this beer was made with mustard, rice and beef.  Interesting.

While planning for Bread & Beer, I sent this recipe to the brewers at Brouwerij Lane as a novelty; the next thing I know, they’re making it.  And it was my favorite beer of the evening.  Joshua Berstein of the New York Press just wrote about it:

But I could definitely get pie-eyed from the second beer. It was a circa-1815 American strong ale fashioned with wheat, barley, rice, dry mustard and lean beef. Yes, beef. “You use it to make a sort of broth,” Olsen explained of the cow flesh, whose proteins aid the Belgian yeast. Instead of being overwhelmingly meaty, the beer drinks dry and slightly fruity, with gentle notes of hamburger.

You can read Berstein’s full article on the Bread & Beer event here.

Brewers: give this recipe a shot.  You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

They brewed this beer in two incarnations, one of which was infused with caraway.  Below, the full menu and tasting notes for the event.

On a Personal Note: Reality TV, 1940′s Style.

Published on September 30, 2009 in 20th century, bread and washington d.c.. 0 Comments

I’ve been watching 1940s House, the 2001 BBC series in which a family recreates the living conditions during war time Britain. It’s a really excellent show; I find the British versions of the “House” shows to be much more fascinating. They cast people with a sincere interest in history, and I think it makes for a better show than the American version, which leans more towards reality tv and drama drama drama.

The shows also features several appearances by Marguerite Patten, and a focus on rationing and food prep in the ’40s. The show is well worth adding to your Netflix que.
On Wednesday, I baked three more loaves of sourdough bread. I still don’t quite have my technique mastered, but I’m getting close. It let it rise longer, and I baked two loaves at 450 with the lid on for 20 minutes, and the lid off for 30 minutes. I also tried using a loaf pan, instead of the Pyrex casserole I have been using. It was still dense–I think I’m going to have problems getting the bread to rise until my steam heat gets turned in. My apartment is chilly is the fall. Additionally, the bread tasted more like a classic sourdough than the cheesy bread I made last week. It’s from the same starter, so I don’t get. I guess when you’re cooking and eating living animals, their always going to be some variation.
The prettiest loaf of them all will be traveling with me to our nation’s capital, where I’m visiting my friend Bryan this weekend. We’re going on a historic food adventure which includes a trip to the cafe at the Museum of the American Indian and a visit to George Washington’s distillery. More on that next week.

The Sourdough Battle: The Great Bake Off

Published on September 28, 2009 in baking, bread and yeast. 0 Comments

Astoria Sourdough: highly recommended.

The time has come to bake bread from the starters I have so laboriously cared for!

After poking around for a simple bread recipe, I can across the video from the New York Times.


I selected this recipe because I had seen this photo from Simply Sourdough the Alaskan Way, of two turn-of-the-century gentleman making sourdough in cast iron pots. The recipe is so simple, I figured it had to be relatively similar. I found the recipe adapted for sourdough here.

***
Simple Sourdough Bread

1 cup starter
1 cup water
3 cups flour
2 tsp salt

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees. “Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic)” in oven to preheat. In a large bowl combine ingredients. Cover bowl and “let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.”

2. “Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself…” (reference video for this technique)

3. Carefully pick up the dough, and drop into the preheated pot. Cover with lid and bake 20 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, “until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.”

***

When I busted out my Astoria (nee New York) Sourdough Starter and gave it a sniff, the smell had definitely mellowed from stinky cheese to almost imperceptibly sour. After scooping out a cup of starter for my dough, I added a cup of flour and 3/4 water back into the starter, mixed it up, and let it sit out for about 6 hours before I put it back into the fridge. Use distilled or bottled water; tap water could be chlorinated and will kill your yeast friends.

I prepared the bread according to the recipe above, starting with the Astoria starter. The loaf came out of the oven a little weird looking: shiny, burnt in places, and lopsided. The latter is the fault of my oven, which, like my floor, slopes to the center of the room. Despite its suspicious looks, the bread smelled delicious. Like Parmesan cheese.

I really should have let the bread cool, but I was excited, and my roommate talked me into slicing it open. It was incredibly dense, and I deduced that I had not let it rise long enough.

We tasted it anyway: it was wonderful. Like a Parmesan cheese bread, that occasionally also tasted like baked macaroni and cheese. It was delicious. I could have eaten it all day. I was amazed. I had literally created this bread from nothing. How can so much flavor come from a mason jar full of flour and water on my windowsill? After having to throw away so many starters to get here, the whole thing just seemed like magic.

“I made this from the air,” I pointed out to my roommate. “You’re eating a piece of New York City. Literally.”

I put the Alaskan sourdough into the oven next; it rose slightly better, and the result was slightly less dense. But nowhere near as flavorful as the Astoria Sourdough. The New York bread was hands down our favorite.


Both loaves came out too dense. I don’t think I let either loaf of bread rise long enough: I hit closer to the 8 hour mark instead of 12. Bittman even recommends letting the dough rise for another 2 hours after you pull it out of the bowl and fold it over, which may be worth a try. Bittman also suggests cooking at 450 for 30 minutes with the lid on, the 15-30 minutes with the lid off. I am going to try his cooking temperature next time, to see if it prevents burnt bits.

The flavor of Sourdough bread varies by the region in which it is baked: sourdough was baked in San Francisco and Alaska because itinerant men needed to start their own yeast cultures; the sourdough from these regions became famous because of the particularly tasty local strains of yeast. New York yeast apparently tastes like mac and cheese.

I declare this experiment a success, although the technique will need to be tweaked. I will definitely be baking another loaf of delicious, cheesy, Astoria Sourdough. And I feel much closer to being able to survive on the frontier, just like so many other women had to do, long ago. Next week: I learn how to slaughter a buffalo.(just kidding)

(or maybe not…)

P.S.: For a little more science behind sourdough, here’s Alton Brown:


The Sourdough Battle: After Three Days

Published on September 9, 2009 in baking and bread. 0 Comments

After three days, the Alaskan Sourdough was ready to rock. It smelled sweet and yeasty. But I’m not really surprised, since the yeast culture is actually the result of the beer. Still, I’m looking forward to baking with it.What I’m really excited about is the New York Sourdough. As promised in the Science of Cooking Recipe, after three days the bread was dry on the outside, but inside it was bubbly with the arrival of transient yeasts making a home! And the best part? It does not smell like cat puke. It smelled “slightly sour,” the way it should.

Continuing to follow the recipe, I added 1/2 cup of flour and enough water to work it into a dough. I placed it back into the mason jar for another two days, and when I came back it was a blob of yeast bubbles.
And the best part? IT STILL DOES NOT SMELL LIKE CAT PUKE. It smells like a ripened cheese.
The only disheartening bit: after I pulled off the dried outside, there was a mysterious greyish spot in the center. I decided to continue the experiment, at a possible risk to my personal health. I added another cup of flour and a cup of water, and let it rise another twelve hours.
Mike, who comments here, made a very astute observation. He suggested that perhaps the reason bakeries keep the same starter for a hundred years is that is may be difficult to grow a starter that is appropriate for baking. Additionally, even the Science of Cooking notes “Working with starters takes practice. Many variables—for example, the amount of yeast in the air and the temperature of the room—will affect the fermentation process. It might take a few tries before you get the flavor you like.”
Both of the starters are ready for baking, but unfortunately I am leaving town for the weekend. I plan on baking two loaves of bread, one from each starter, when I return.
I feel as though I am one step closer to surviving on the Oregon Trail. Next, I’ll practice typing BANG really fast.
In the meantime, I’ll be baking apple pies with my mother in Ohio, using 17th, 18th, and 21st century recipes.

Alaska Sourdough vs. New York Sourdough

Published on September 3, 2009 in bread. 0 Comments

Let the competition begin!

I am giving this sourdough starter thing one more chance. Please bare with me. I’m obsessed with making sourdough for two reasons: 1. Because I feel like a magician. Making bread appear–out of thin air!– in my mind is akin pulling a rabbit out of a hat. 2. Because I know it was done in the past, so I am determined to figure out how it was done. My mother thinks that some 19th century knowledge, like wild yeast starters, have just been lost to the ages. But I’m determined to rediscover it. So off I go to grow some pet yeasts.

This time, I’m attempting to make a yeast starter using two different methods. The first is courtesy of my friends Kristina and Chris in Alaska, who discovered a local woman who makes bags of pre-packaged yeast starter. They cornered her with questions on my behalf, and purchased a bag of her started as a gift to me.

I don’t know what the ingredients in her dry starter mix are, but I followed her instructions added a 1/4 cup of luke warm water and 6 ounces of beer. I had a Sam Adams Boston Lager in the fridge, so I poured half of it in a mason jar (I poured the other half of the beer in my roommate), and mixed it thoroughly with the dry ingredients . I placed the cover loosely on the mason jar, and set it on my windowsill to warm up and catch some yeast. In three days, it should be ready to roll.
The second method I’m trying is from The Science of Cooking. It’s slightly different than other wild yeast starters I’ve tried: you take a small mound of flour and mix it with a little water until it turns into a paste. Continue kneading it, 5-8 minutes, until it become a springy ball of dough.
I tossed that in a mason jar and covered it with a damp towel. In a few days, it should start to get yeasty, and I’ll add more flour. It will hopefully catch some New York yeast, so I’m calling it New York Sourdough.
A little ball of love.
So, we’ll see what happens. I learned recently that the bacteria present in sourdough is actually named Lactobacillus sanfrancisco, after the gold mining region in which sourdough bread was born. The Boudin Bakery is the oldest in San Francisco:

“In 1849, the Boudin family struck culinary gold. Wild yeasts in the San Francisco air had imparted a unique tang to their traditional French bread, giving rise to “San Francisco sourdough French bread.” Today, the Boudin family’s initial recipe lives on in the hands and hearts of our expert bakers, with a portion of the original mother dough still starting each and every sourdough loaf we make.”

They still use the same recipe as they did in ’49, and little molecules of 1849 yeast are still awash in their starter! Awesome! I am really looking forward to visiting the bakery someday.

The Great Alaskan Meat-Off

Published on August 27, 2009 in bread and meat. 0 Comments

I just came back from a two week trip to Alaska, where I staid with my friends Chris and Kristina in Girdwood, a suburb of Anchorage. I wanted to share with you some of the food I consumed.

Because of my continuing obsession with sourdough bread, Kristina took me to the local bakery, The Bake Shop. As we arrived, so did a busload of tourists: The Shop seems to be the go-to breakfast stop for locals and tourists alike. I purchased a loaf of sourdough bread, which was surprisingly mild and delicious. Sourdough is associated with gold mining regions, like Alaska and San Francisco, because the miners could make it without taking a “sponge,” or yeast culture, with them. It could be created from yeast spores in the air.

Kristina gifted me with a bag of locally-made sourdough starter, which gets going after you add a can of beer. I’m excited to try it, but I still want to try to create a starter from air-borne yeast.

I also had “Sweet Roll with a Side of Butter,” also made of sourdough, and also delicious. It had cinnamon and almonds, but also mysterious notes of brandy and anise. I had two over the extent of my stay.

Kristina, who was a vegetarian when I knew her in college, took me on a shopping trip to Indian Valley Meats. Another local vendor, they specialize in breaking down and preparing carcasses for local hunters, and sell a variety of locally raised game meats. Kristina selected and prepared a menagerie of local animals for me to ingest:

Clockwise, from left to right: Moose, Buffalo, Caribou, Elk, and Reindeer. Caribou and Reindeer are actually the same thing, the latter being wild and the former being farmed.
I also ate wild boar jerky, which was covered in some sort of garlic glaze I wasn’t too keen on, and salmon that Chris had pulled from the river days earlier. This fish was delicious–and I hate fish.

In my second week, while on our way to Denali National Park, I finally acquired the object of my true desire: The Mc Kinley Mac. I had seen a poster for it as soon as I stepped off the plane, and had fantasized about it since. The Number 12 on the menu, this double-stacked McKinley Mac is only available in this state. Which is ok, because as I excited as I was to sample it, it just turned out to be a big gross burger.

The McKinley Mac and I zoom towards Mt. McKinley, on our way to Denali national Park.
On the way back from Denali, we stopped at a Burger King in Wasilla. The BK menu included a Sourdough Whopper, but after a week in the wild, I wasn’t in the mood to take a risk.

Lastly, I made up a batch of Spruce Tea, after harvesting a few limbs from Alaska’s State Tree. It did not just taste like pine needles, but had a richer, spiced flavour. The batch I brewed was fairly weak, and I wanted to make a proper pot of tea when I returned to New York, but I forgot my bag branches in Girdwood. Perhaps Kristina will be kind enough to ship a few stateside–I’m curious to pass some along to my beer brewing friends, so they can make an authentic Spruce Beer.

At every restaurant we went to (three in the small town of Girdwood alone) the food was excellent, something I definitely didn’t expect when coming to Alaska. Additionally, there were very few chain restaurants; the ones that were there hadn’t even popped up until the last decade. Alaska’s relative isolation seems to have resulted in a bevy of independently owned restaurants with excellent food.

If you’re interested in my non-culinary Alaskan adventures, you should look at my photos here.

Continuing to Try to Make Yeast Appear from Thin Air

Published on June 11, 2009 in bread. 0 Comments


While I was vacationing at my summer home in Cleveland (I staid with my parents), my mom and I decided to try to grow a yeast culture.  We were inspired by a book my friend Kristina sent me from Alaska: a little pamphlet about the history of sourdough bread.  It carried these instructions on making your own starter:

***
Traditional Sourdough Starter
From Simply Sourdough — The Alaskan Way– by Kathy Doogan
2 cups Warm Water
2 cups Flour

Place ingredients in a glass bowl and blend well with a wooden or plastic spoon.  Cover loosely with a clean towel (this allows air to enter the bowl so your starter can pick up wild yeasts from the environment) and place it in a warm spot.  Once a day, remove half the starter and throw it away.  To the remaining starter, add 1 cup flour and 1 cup warm water; stir in well until lumps are gone.  After 3 or 4 days of replenishing the starter it should be bubbly and have a pleasant sour smell.  It is then ready to be used immediately or it can be placed in a clean container with a loose cover and refrigerated for later use.

***

We followed the recipe, and place the bowl of flour and water out on the driveway to warm up.  If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that last time I tried growing yeast in New York, I ended up with something that smelled like cat puke and looked worse.  I hid it in the back of my refrigerator and eventually threw it away, too scared to make anything from it.  This time wasn’t much better.  Although the starter looked like a starter should, it again smelled exactly like cat puke.  The stink of it made a friend dry heave.

However, having now attempted this operation twice with the same results, I was willing to try to make some cat puke bread.  Mom, after listening to my father going on about some kind of deadly yeast, decided to throw it out.  The decision was made for us when, after forgetting to bring the bowl in at night, some creature came along and ate it.  I imagine the creature looked like this:


Simply Sourdough comes with a packet of yeast starter; I think I might try to make it and compare smells.

Yeast Infection!

Published on April 9, 2009 in baking, bread and try this at home. 0 Comments

Left: The fresh starter. Right: After 48 hours.

I never updated you on my yeast experiments from last month.  Here’s the recipe I used to start my own yeast colony:

Except for some reason I didn’t boil it…I don’t know if I didn’t read the recipe close or what.  Here’s what I did:  I took a cup of flour and mixed it with 1/4 brown sugar, a pinch of salt, and a cup of water.  I let it sit out uncovered for 24 hours, the covered and let it sit another four hours.  Now despite the fact I didn’t follow the recipe, according to those in the know at Orwasher’s, this should still work.  After 48 hours, there were definitely some yeasty-looking bubbles.  But it also smelled horrible; Like cat puke.  I closed it up and hid it in the back of the fridge, where my roommates wouldn’t find it and ask “Lohman…What’s this?”

Needless to say, I haven’t tried to make anything from it. I’ve been too scared.  And that’s where it stands.

If you’re looking to try to make your own yeast, I also find many recipes, like this one, that use a combination of hops and potatoes.