Sourdough beet bread, finally!

16 years ago

Two days ago I tried to make SD beet bread but accidentally turned on the oven and baked the dough before its time. Today, I decided to redeem myself. The loaves turned out well and the color of the dough was just beautiful!

I made two loaves and they both had very good oven spring. The crust was purple but the crumb was brown. I used mostly whole wheat flour. Not sure if the results will be different if I used AP flour instead.

First loaf:

Second loaf:

The crumb looks like this:

Hubby and little man tried some as soon as the bread was cooled and sliced. They both said "Hmmmmm....". Must be good! LOL

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Comments (11)

lindac
16 years ago
Is there any beet flavor?
althetrainer
Original Author
16 years ago
My husband said it had a very unique but mild beet flavor. When little man tasted it and he said "like meat!". I was not sure why he said that because I didn't eat any. I will try some tomorrow morning for breakfast then I will tell you. :-) Al
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digdirt and jimster thanks for the links , good reading. ksrogers thats a nice story as i always enjoy reading the family ones, on the other forum i have been going to for little over 3 years now we discuss fig tree and there fruit another passion of mine and the family history of the tree's are great to read as well so thanks for shareing that. My granfather in Italy was a baker by trade my father used to tell me but i never met him nor grandmother as they passed when i was small. The cast iron pan gets a ring of slight rust after it cools around inside rim which i scrub with water and then rub in some oil and heat on stove till i use it next ,it is cumbersome and this one pan is just for the bread , when i preheat oven with it i dont get any smoke which is good. I just have to keep at it or it would rust thats for sure, but your right stainless would be much much better. Today i baked a loaf of bread with some starter that i had bought last year, i tried a basket i have with one of those towels in it floured nice, so i made the dough wetter i usually freeform my loaves, i figured since in a basket i could get away with a wetter dough. I had a stone but it cracked on me last year so i use a preheated cookie sheet, i took cookie sheet out of hot oven and placed over the basket i know what your thinking burn towel and basket well that did not happen but the dough flattend out more or less at this point i slashed top and put in oven, now the funny part, my turkey roaster i was going to use i thought well if the dough rises to much it will mess things up so i used tall aluminum stock pot to cover the dough to see what would happen. After about 4 to 5 minutes i pulled rack out of oven and lifted pot up and the dough would have stuck to it as it kept on spreading. So i left top off of dough and misted it and sides of oven, the bread tasted good with slight sour taste this evening with spaghettis and the works but it looked awfull , the crum had nice holes though oh well. I have what they call chicago mettalic pan with a bunch of little holes in it if anyone is familar with it you know what it looks like, trouble is the bread crust pokes thru them iv'e tried several ways, first time for proofing in them (big mess) second time proofing loafs elswhere then baking in them another mistake as they crust still went into the wholes and made it hard to clean. Then i used parchment paper until crust formed enough not to poke thru the holes which is what i do now when i use this , basically im not crazy about it. So im going to try the basket again it seems like it works well and is the right size for the pound and a half bread i make and comes out easy for me i just need to not make the dough as wet, and i should get a bakers peel as well instead of fooling around with a hot cookie sheet like i did today, in the meen time i think i will freeform the loaves till i get the bakers peel 1 day.The starter i bought off ebay seems slow to activate but its getting there, the other one i experimented with is so far going real well as there are many more bubbles now than yesterday , today im dumpind all but a cup and then just adding cup of flour and about cup of water it seems to react faster than the other ones i have dealt with in the past and present so im anxious to try this one, it did have an off odor at first but now it seems to be ok , im going to keep feeding it for a good week and then bake and see what the results are. Sorry for long post but i tried to put what i as thinking all in one post instead of creating several different ones, any comments are always welcome. Martin
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That's too funny, Terriks. This has become our family activity: a Sourdough Starter Race. Each one of us got a 1 qt mason jar, and I had everyone watch a video (I thought this guy would be more appealing than say, Pioneer Woman : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Ssdzk6uhI ). Then they had a choice of flours, liquids, yogurt, raisins, honey, berries juices etc. It was up to them what they did but I advised equal weight liquid and flour. We are feeding them every day after our Linner (now dubbed Dejeuner Tardif). In 10 days, we will discard all but 2T of each contestant's starter. Then we will feed them, and wait 24 hours. Whoever's grows the fastest wins and that what we'll use to bake bread. Knowing my oddly competitive bunch, I realized I had to hide the yeast packets, baking soda and baking powder lest they cheat! Still don't know what to do if they try sabotage... Elunia that is a work of art! PS I could not find organic whole wheat flour anywhere, though I did get some other flours that look great. I ended up buying whole wheat flour from a farm in PA on Etsy. Like my garden tomatoes, this process (cue the banettons and bench scraper) will yield the most expensive food we've ever had, rivalling Blue Hill
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dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
16 years ago
Those look so incredibly wonderful. I am red with envy.

Nice slicer.

dcarch
althetrainer
Original Author
16 years ago
All right. I had a piece for breakfast this morning. It has a bit of beet flavor but very subtle. It's very soft and a bit sweeter than my regular SD bread. I love the purple crust around the brown crumb; makes it very unique. :-)

Al
Terri_PacNW
16 years ago
It looks like a giant macaroon in it's risen dough state!

It is very attractive Al..

Did you use your electric slicer to slice it perfectly?
annie1992
16 years ago
yum, I love beets, and I grow a lot of them in the summer, so it's time now to post the recipe.

I don't know how you possibly waited that long to try the bread, I'd have torn off the end hunk and eaten it hot from the oven, LOL. Yeah, I know I'm not "supposed to"...

Annie
trudy_gw
16 years ago
We grow beets also. What variety does every one grow? I was looking at the veggie catalogs yesterday and noticed golden beets. Have never seen them before.

Bruce was not so sure of eating them the first time we had the roasted beets. Surprise he loved them. Ran out of beets way before we were tired of them. Wish we could get them in the stores around here.

Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes has a beet bun recipe that I would like to try when I get beets again.

Al, that bread looks pretty and tasty also!
althetrainer
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks everyone! Terri, the giant Macaroon was the part I like... so pretty! And yes, I used an electric slicer to make sandwiches slices. Can't live without it! :-)

Annie, I know what you mean! I would love to dig in when it's still warm and so did hubby! LOL The one thing I like about sourdough bread is that the flavor intensifies a couple of days later. I am eating a slice of my SD orange parmesan right now. It's been four days and the orange flavor is so intense this morning...

Well, the recipe... don't really have one. I made the sponge the night before using one cup of WW starter, 2 cups WW flour, & 2 cups water. Next morning, save one cup of sponge for my next starter. Then I added into the rest of the sponge, 4 - 5 cups of flour, the pureed beets (boiled and peeled two of them, just a bit over a pound), 2 T sugar, 2 T oil, 1 tsp salt and a couple T VWG. Once the ingredients were well mixed, I added dried basil and kneaded until smooth. Didn't add fresh dills until I shaped the loaves for final proof. First rise 4 hours, then 2 more hours in the oven with a pan of hot water. Baked at 350F for 50 min; internal temperature was 198F.

Trudy, I have heard of golden beets too but have never seen one. We grow the ones that everyone sells in the grocery store. They are easy to grow except you have to keep piling dirt over the roots or they wouldn't grow big.

Hubby is the one who's into beets. I don't eat beets often. And yes, I hear roasted beets taste much better than boiled or steamed. Got to try it this summer.

When I buy some I usually pickle them. Little man is too afraid of the color and he won't touch it. LOL

Al
arabellamiller
16 years ago
Gorgeous bread! I'm so jealous of your slicer.

I love beets, and often got the golden ones in my CSA box this summer. I like them because they don't stain like the red ones do, although I love the ruby color of the red ones.

AM
annie1992
16 years ago
jessica sent me some seeds for golden beets but they did not like my climate and didn't grow well. I think I got 8 or 10 of them from my planting.

I grow Detroit Dark Red, that's what I've planted my whole life. I've tried the red and white striped Chiogga, the high sugar Red Cloud hybrid, the long and thin Cylindra. I always go back to Detroit Dark Red, they love my cooler climate and produce like mad, beets about the size of a baseball without having to hill the dirt up around them or doing anything special at all.

I love beets, now I'm going to have to experiment in adding them to bread. It'd make a great Valentine's Day sandwich, thanks Al.

Annie
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
16 years ago
"Posted by trudy -----------We grow beets also. What variety does every one grow? I was looking at the veggie catalogs yesterday and noticed golden beets. Have never seen them before. "

I have grown them. Very beautiful inside. they taste somewhat milder. The beet tops are very nice.

dcarch

Sourdough beet bread, finally!

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lindac

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Sourdough beet bread, finally!

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