GAIL's Potato and Rosemary Sourdough Loaf, 650g

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I steamed my oven in my usual way, described here in my post on how to steam your home oven for baking. To shape as a batard: flip the resting round over onto the floured surface and fold the top half up and over to the middle and the bottom half up and over the recently folded top. You’ll have a long horizontal rectangle sitting in front of you. Turn the rectangle 90º and grab a small portion of the top, pull up and fold over a little bit, pressing down to seal. Take the rolled top and continue to gently roll it down toward your body with two hands working together. As you do each roll and work your way down the vertical rectangle, use your thumbs to gently press the dough into itself.

Dump the dough onto the counter and slap and fold the dough (French fold) for about 3-4 minutes, just until the dough starts to show signs of a smooth surface. The dough should be fairly strong. Cover with a lid or plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise until doubled in a warm place.This is called bulk ferment. I chose to puree the potatoes in my blender for a smooth consistency (and a few chunks) but you could also dice the potatoes if you’d like to have bits of potato very evident in the crumb. Additionally, you could wash the potatoes and leave the skin on for added texture and interest. Early trials of this recipe using thyme instead of rosemary Vitals Total Dough Weight But the project didn’t last. “It started and ended on a high,” says Molnar. “I admire people who successfully run restaurants over many years, it’s tough. The restaurant was an experiment but it wasn’t something I had the time or energy to focus on in the end, so it was better to focus on something we knew how to do.” He pauses, adding: “It’s a double-edged sword to have a pretty famous chairman, there’s a good and a bad side. But mostly it’s been good for us.”But this web might not be as invisible and hidden as it might first seem. We see evidence of the intermingled connections each time we sit down to eat: “this cake reminds me of that one you made 2 years ago when…,” or “this salad reminds me of that time we were traveling through Italy and stopped in at…” In fact, I’d go out on a limb and say just about every meal I eat with my family we talk about other meals eaten, or other dishes enjoyed in the past — and it's through that traversal of the food-memory web where we are instantly, and clearly, transported to a significant time and place in our otherwise blurred history. Gail’s eye-catching in-store displays, where bread, cakes and sandwiches sit out on a counter, was a deliberate choice by Molnar. “The world in which I grew in the United States was about wrapping everything and putting it in the fridge and hiding it,” he explains. “My wife’s Italian and at her house they’d have this table of food that never emptied. Going forward, Gail’s is looking to grow, initially within its south east heartland, though its wholesale arm has a bakery in Manchester which could support openings in the north of England. As it reaches its 15th birthday, what could the company look like at 30? To avoid a not so pleasant crust from developing, cover the dough with a damp towel, beeswax wrap, a lid or plastic wrap. On Thursday the first 100 loaves of”waste bread” – baked in the early hours – will go on sale in 10 selected branches of Gail’s Bakery, before being rolled out across the rest of its 43-strong chain in London and the south-east. Roughly one-third of each baked 750g loaf consists of leftover bread and the chain calculates that the 100 loaves being baked daily will save approximately 10kg of bread being wasted per day.

I hope we continue to grow up and learn. We have almost one million transactions a month now. That’s a level of responsibility I never thought I would have. I have a glimpse from talking to world class bakers on what the next 10 to 15 years in baking could look like and it’s exciting. There’s some smart people wanting to make better bread. Score the top of the dough with a razor or lame. Place the dough on a piece of parchment paper for best results and transfer to the dutch oven. Careful it is hot. This almost paternal feeling is shared by many of the long-serving bakers. “Our head baker treats the doughs like his babies, when he’s on holiday he calls and asks how they’re doing.” With Johnson’s help Gail’s may have reached 60 cafes, but Molnar deliberately resisted the turbo-charged growth seen by other brands in the sector. “I actually slowed down when people were speeding up. I said the money had to go on food not rent. You were seeing incredible competition for prime spaces that would have meant I’d have had to cut corners.”

At 78-82°F (25-27°C) ambient temperature, bulk fermentation should go for about 3 hours. Perform a total of 2 sets of stretch and folds during bulk, spaced out by 30 minutes. This focus on its product led to the development of Gail’s Waste-Not range, made with surplus and leftover products. In 2018 Roz Bado, the group’s head baker, created its Waste-Less sourdough by whizzing leftover loaves in to breadcrumbs and turning it into a ‘porridge’. This is added to fresh white sourdough starter, with malt and salt to create a new loaf. Note that the baker’s percentages listed below are with respect to the final dough ingredients and do not take into account the levain. Weight

Transfer to floured banneton or a bowl lined with a tea towel (I like to use rice flour). Another option is an oiled bowl. Cover with plastic and proof for 12-15 hours in the refrigerator. Towards the end of its life, we recommend transforming the loaf into croutons, stuffing or even a croque monsieur. After building the levain, preheat the oven to 425°F (218°C). Prepare a small baking sheet lined with parchment, wash the potatoes and using a fork to perform a few shallow pokes around the potato. Molnar grew up baking with his grandparents in Florida and studied Ecology at Ivy-League Dartmouth College. He initially wanted to be a fish farmer but ended up working as a trader for agricultural firm Cargill, and later in management consulting. Cover each basket with plastic and then place it in the refrigerator at 38°F (3°C) for 13-14 hours. 8. Bake – Next Morning: Preheat oven at 6:00 a.m., Bake at 7:00 a.m.I hope this sourdough bread with roasted potato and rosemary, with its deep, rich flavor and surprisingly light texture, helps you form new food-memory connections for you and whomever you share your loaves with. Perhaps now my Dad's desire for potato bread is satiated, at least until I develop my next recipe. The original idea was Bado’s, following a discussion with her flatmate about food waste and how edible bread could be re-used in a new product.

I love how eating good food tugs at an invisible, interconnected web of food-memories we’ve constructed over the course of our lifetimes. This complex web, with scattered connections between foods, smells, experiences, and memories, is gradually filled in and ever-evolving: it shapes the corpus of foods we enjoy, giving them significance in place and time. Perhaps the construction of this web is instilled at a primal level, maybe it’s a way we’ve evolutionarily progressed to favor foods that provide proper nourishment by exciting our senses, pushing out hollow foods that provide nothing or are uninteresting. I believe it’s one of the many reasons we’ve stayed alive for so long, eating the things we need instead of those we don’t. Transfer to flour banneton or bowl with tea towel and cover with plastic. Place in the refrigerator for 12-15 hours. The Next Day Bake the loaves at 450°F (232°C) for 20 minutes with steam, then remove the steaming pans from inside the oven. Then, bake for an additional 30-35 minutes or until done. Once the oven is preheated, roast the potatoes on the baking sheet for 45 minutes to 1 hour, rotating and flipping them halfway. Test the potatoes at 45 minutes to see if they are done by inserting a knife into the center. The knife should slide easily and not encounter any tough spots. This is really good but you should try to make sourdough potato bread sometime, it’s delicious.” I’ve probably heard my Dad utter a version of thatfifty times to date, usually just after eating a slice of my fresh sourdough bread.

Sour cherry & currant sourdough

Turn the oven temperature down to 475, remove the lid, and bake an additional 25 minutes or until browned. Storage: Transfer to floured banneton or a bowl lined with a tea towel (I like to use rice flour). Another option is an oiled bowl (I usually use olive oil for this). Cover with plastic and proof for 12-15 hours in the refrigerator. This is the second rise. Baking In a large mixing bowl, combine warm water, flour, sourdough starter, and salt with your hands, a wooden spoon, or dough whisk. Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes for the water to hydrate the flour.This process is called autolyse, which allows all the flours to become hydrated.