Crispbread

While making a new sourdough starter, I ended up with surplus after each daily feed. The instructions said "discard", but there is no way I could do that, so I saved it in the fridge and yesterday mixed up a variation of my recipe for crispbread in order to use up this surplus semi-sourdough.



Ingredients

3 dl water
2 tbsp grapeseed oil
1 tsp salt
3 sachets quick yeast (7 g each)
8 dl rye flour
2.5 dl strong white flour
285 g sourdough left-overs


Method

1. In the bowl of the kitchen machine, mix together the water, grapeseed oil and salt.
2. In a separate bowl blend together the quick yeast, 7 dl of the rye flour and the white four, then add to the liquid and start mixing to a dough.
3. Finally add the sourdough left-overs and let the machine work up a nice dark dough. It will most likely still be sticky at this point.
4. Turn out the dough on a worksurface and start incorporating the final dl of rye dough, stop when the dough stops being sticky.
5. Place back in the bowl, cover with cling film and let rise for about 1 h or preferably overnight in the fridge.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C and prepare two identical baking sheets with baking paper.The baking sheets shouldn't have a lip around the edge.
7. Take some of the dough, about the size of a grapefruit, dust generously with flour and roll out to about 3 - 4 mm thickness, using a knobbly rolling pin if possible, if not, prick the dough with a fork.
8. Cut into shapes and transfer to one of the baking sheets, cover with the second baking paper, then place the second baking sheet on top.
9. Bake in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool.
10. Repeat with a second piece of dough and so on until all the dough has been used up.
11. Store in air-tight containers, also place a piece of kitchen tissue inside to make sure they stay dry.

This time I wanted to make the crispbreads a bit thicker than previously, so I rolled them thicker. But I made a mistake here in rolling a new batch, while one was baking. This resulted in the rolled out dough proofing and puffing up, so when it went into the oven, it ballooned like pita bread. So very important to roll out at the last minute before baking. The dough is soft enough, so shouldn't take too long, unless your are fiddling with fancy cookie cutters.

I also baked two trays before having the idea of putting a second baking tray on top to keep them down. This was a method used for when baking puff pastry for mille-feuille.It worked pretty well, apart from not being able to see when the crispbreads are done, but it helped brown them on both sides. They still puffed up a little, but not like balloons.

And as I rolled the dough thicker, the oven temperature had to go down, I burnt a few before I worked that out, the original recipe states 250 degrees C.

So now I have two big boxes full of crispbreads for Lundulph to nibble on. Of course, as I'm still feeding my sourdough starter daily, I have surplus sourdough that goes into a box in the fridge and I think it can be added to regular bread dough for enhancing the flavour. Once my new starter goes in the fridge, I'll freeze the box with surplus for future use.

My Mum also sent me a different recipe for crispbread, without yeast, but with lots of seeds. I did intend to try it out as well, but I might wait a couple of days or so.