Sunday, February 5, 2012

My bubbly friend - Sure-Kurt

It is mighty cold here in the little country - come on, gulf stream, do your thing and warm up this country a bit!!


So you do indoor stuff as much as you can, and baking bread is one of my favorite things to do.


Last week I decided that I was going to start baking my own rye bread again. Danish rye bread is dark and often whole grain, and usually it is made with a sour dough.


I don't have one of those, so I went online to find a recipe to start up a sour dough. Turns out there are two ways to do that. One way is starting it with a bit of yeast, and the other is to let the yeast culture find your sour dough all by itself.


Why make it easy - I decided to go for the hard way. I mixed up rye and wheat flour with some water, and set it on my kitchen counter. Every day I fed a little extra flour and water into it. After 4 or 5 days it started smelling beery and yeasty in just the right way, and then came the bubbles.


So I was ready to make my bread.


I mixed about half of my sour dough, that in the meantime had taken on a personality of it's own enough to be named "Sure-Kurt" (Sour-Kurt), with water and whole grain, and let it sit over night. The next day I added rye and wheat flour and some salt, and my dough was ready to rise and put into a loaf pan and bake.


Wonderful, grainy bread with a tantalizing scent and a great taste - That is certainly not my last loaf of home made bread! It's been a long time since I made rye bread, and I wonder why I stopped...


In the meantime, Sure-Kurt still lives on my counter. Today he gave birth to Lille-Kurt (Little-Kurt) - who is moving in with my daughter. She will take care of him and feed him every day, so that he can get big enough for her to make her own lovely bread.


So right now, Sure-Kurt is pretty small himself. I will feed him well, though, so he is ready to use for a new loaf next weekend :-)


I love baking! It is so rewarding and it feels creative, even when it is just following a recipe.