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I've been making a daube for the last 3 days and will show it tomorrow when it is ready. A good French daube just has to be eaten with a crunchy loaf of French bread so I made some for the first time using my sourdough starter. I am becoming brave and using my starter more and more and am now much more comfortable with it.
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Last night I measured out 1 1/2 cups of my starter then added 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water. I let this sit covered overnight. This is what it looked like this morning.
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I poured the starter mix into the bowl of my mixer and added 2 1/4 teaspoons of instant rise yeast, 2 teaspoons of salt, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 teaspoons of oil and 1 cup of water.
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Then I added about 6 cups of flour. The amount of flour can vary so add enough until your dough looks like this and is still a bit sticky but pulls away from the side of the mixer bowl.
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Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and turn it to cover the surface lightly in oil. Cover and let it double in bulk. This takes about an hour.
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This is how it should look once it has doubled.
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This is the pan I used for my loaves.
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I measured the dough so I had 3 equal balls.
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On a lightly floured surface, you roll the dough to form logs.
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Then you pull and stretch them gently to fit the pan.
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I always line my pans with a bit of parchment to keep them from sticking. These loaves where a bit too sticky so next time I will be sure to add more flour.
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Let them rise again then gently slash the surface of each loaf a few times. It took them about 30 minutes to rise this much. Place them in a 400 degree preheated oven with a pan of water on the bottom. The water will create steam which gives you a crispy crust.
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Mine baked for about 40 minutes. The front loaf shows what the bottom of the finished loaf should look like. The loaves were a bit large for the triple pan I used so next time I might use individual French loaf pans. I also will take the time to shape them a bit better next time.
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However, with a pat of butter and sprinkled with a bit of sea salt, they were still delicious and will be wonderful with tomorrow's daube.
Comments
i need to get another one....
can't wait to hear about the daube....
it is daube weather here today too....
kary and teddy