Weekend Bakes (and Pita Recipe!)

Brioche hamburger buns, grapefruit yeast rustic sandwich bread, multigrain sourdough boule

Making Time for Baking

There are some things I really don't have time for.

• Long drives in the car (to work or to most places, truthfully)
• A gym membership
• Cleaning the house (and all non-emergency home improvement projects, really)
• Haircuts
• More than one sport or activity per season per kid

But you know, I always seem to find time for the things that matter most to me.

• Baking bread, cooking from scratch
• Reading (and talking about books)
• Writing
• Biking for transportation
• Playing/learning/doing stuff with my kids
• Eating :)

How Sourdough Fits Into My Life

My sourdough lives in the fridge, so it only needs to be fed once a week. I usually bake on weekends, so on Saturday or Sunday I use most of it, feed it, and put it back in the fridge.

This past weekend I made a sourdough multigrain bread, a batch of brioche buns, and a 50/50 white/whole wheat sandwich loaf (pics above).

For the sandwich loaf, I built up an overnight preferment using my grapefruit yeast water, which is just organic grapefruit skins, honey, and water in a jar that I placed on top of the refrigerator (a warm spot) for a few days. That's a post for another day. :)

Last weekend I baked two loaves of Jewish rye bread, one with seeds and one without, and a batch of pita bread.

Jewish seeded rye

Here's the recipe for the pita bread. It's super simple and the technique of an overnight rise works really well for a weekend bake.

Sourdough Pita Bread

200 g sourdough starter
225 g water
425 g all purpose flour (or a mix of whole wheat and AP)
10 g sugar
20 g oil

Mix together to form a shaggy mess, let sit 30 min covered with a towel.

Add 8 g salt, kneed briefly, let sit 20 min. Kneed briefly again, let sit again for 20 min.

Form 8 balls, place on a greased cookie sheet, cover with a kitchen towel and put in the fridge overnight.

In the morning, preheat the oven with a pizza stone on to 500 degrees F. Meanwhile, roll a couple of the balls into an oval shape about 1/8 inch thick.

Bake for about three to five minutes each, until they've puffed up like a pillow and are barely golden — just a shade of brown at the edge maybe. Close the oven door! Don't let the heat escape much as you're throwing the pitas in there two at a time.

Continue until you have a pleasing pile of pillows on a wire rack.

Original recipe here.