Thursday 16 February 2012

sour milk bread

i bought a two litre bottle of unhomogenised organic milk late last week from my local greengrocer who stocks some quality grocery items and at the time he warned me that the particular milk i was purchasing tends to sour quickly..but i didn't really give it a lot of thought until i noticed a faint sour milk taste in a cup of tea a couple of days later.. interestingly the sour smell and taste of this milk was not as strong and unpleasant as other milk that i've had sour in the past..anyway, i have a tendency to avoid waste, so i used some of that expensive soured milk to make some yeasted bread yesterday..now i know yeast is fast acting and that's why i used it instead of my sourdough starter but i was really surprised at how effortlessly and quickly i had a couple of loaves cooling on my bench in time for dinner..

sour milk bread

ingredients

250 gms bread flour
250 gms wholemeal flour
300 mls warmed sour milk*
1 tbs treacle
2-3 tsps salt**
1 (7 gm) sachet yeast
i also threw in about 1/3 cup of discarded sourdough starter and a little bit of left over melted butter from making my spiral spinach pie last week..

2 bread tins

method


place all ingredients in a bowl and mix on low speed for 2 minutes..rest for 10 minutes and then knead for 2 minutes again..remove bowl from mixer..

cover the bowl with cling film and leave until doubled..

remove dough to a floured bench..cut in half..knead and shape to fit tins..cover the tins loosely with cling film and leave to double..

spray with water and sprinkle with fine oatmeal

bake at 220 deg c for 10 minutes..reduce heat to 180 deg c and bake for another 20 minutes or until the top is well browned..remove bread from the tins and return the loaves to the oven for a further 5 minutes..

* when i heated the milk it separated into whey and a solid yoghurt like mass
** i use murray river salt so a bit more than processed salt is required






it's quite a while since i've had a yeasted loaf so i was surprised by the pleasant pillowy softness of the crumb..another positive was the absence of the unpleasant yeasty smell i've sometimes had with yeasted loaves in the past..and in case you're wondering the bread had a lovely flavour with no sour milk flavour at all..and i'm perfectly well this morning.. :)


6 comments:

  1. That looks so yummy. Our family banana bread recipe has sour milk in it. It makes it so moist.

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    1. that's great to know KOcanQuilt..i wasn't sure whether i was taking frugality too far..:)

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  2. I've got no problem with sour milk either. It just gets reincarnated into something else...and I like challenge :-)
    The bread does look lovely and pillowy Jane, and I dare say begging for a slap of butter and a wisp of vegemite.

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    1. i love the challenge of breathing new life into wayward ingredients too brydie..and yes..perfect with butter and vegemite..

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  3. Beautiful bread Jane - I love breads made with dairy products like yours, I was going to say butter and peanut butter, but vegemite would be excellent too !

    I don't think our milk goes sour in the right way as it is usually homogenised and treated. I saw something the other day that was called 'filtered milk' no idea what that was about...

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  4. i looked into sour milk a bit before i used it and there seem to be differences in 'sour'..good sour and not so good sour..mine did smell ok so i went with it..i also wondered about clabbered milk..but apparently that's raw milk that's left to sour so that's different again..i've not heard of filtered milk but it's another puzzle to be solved..:)

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