Saturday, February 27, 2010

Pain au Levain

Hi! I made pain au levain from peter reinhart's book. This was the first time I used a starter in my bread. I made a starter from scratch. This involved me going through all of the phases laid out in the book. The bread came out good! I don't know if it was worth 2 weeks of trouble to get the starter ready. Not to mention having the starter die twice (and having to restart the starter) before getting it right. Also the starter doesn't seem sustainable. Having to add over 2 cups of flower every 5 days and throwing out the majority of it sounds unrealistic. The bread was good though!



I think the bread did have more flavor than usual. I cut up the bread into pieces and brought it to work:


I split the dough into 2 batches. I probably overcooked the second batch but I kind of like it when it's almost burnt:


And here the second batch is sliced:


Next up, sourdough!