Bread-Making Bacchanalia

Sometimes tough decisions have to be made and last night Mrs. McBugbear put the dreaded question to me....

"Are you making bread or processing the tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden?"

From the title I'm sure you can infer my choice.  As is my usual wont I elected to experiment a bit.  I started with a basic sourdough recipe that I hadn't used before and varied it a bit to create three new breads.

Sundry Sourdough Loaves

2 cups of proofed starter
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp melted butter
2 tsp sugar
1tsp salt
3 cups all-purpose flour

Optional  ingredients:

1-2 tbsp Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and 1/4 cup fresh grated Parmesan

-or-

1tsp each, basil, oregano, thyme

-or-

1/2 cup Red River cereal and 1/2 cup of roasted unsalted pumpkin seeds

-or-

1tsp fresh rosemary and 1/2 cup sliced Kalamata (you may need to add more flour as the olives add moisture).  Omit the sugar, milk and butter and add 1/2 to 1 cup of unchlorinated water instead.

Proof your starter, post proofing add milk, melted butter, sugar, salt and flour to the mixing bowl of a stand mixer.   Select your optional ingredients and add to the bowl.   Pour the starter over top and starter the mixer.  Let the loaves double in size and cook for 55 minutes at 375F.  Glaze the loaf with butter as soon as it is removed from the oven.

Notes: 

Due to the absence of sugar, the Rosemary Olive sourdough won't rise as quickly. This recipe is my variation of Pan Chancho's Olive and Rosemary Sourdough, since I'm not hoity-toity I don't use spring water or sea-salt.  I use tap-water, which strictly speaking is spring water since I have a well.  I also use plain old table salt since sea salt is the same thing without the iodine (NaCl is NaCl).  The recipe is also adapted to suit my starter.

I recommend that you cook the the Olive & Rosemary loaf on a pizza stone and also as a free form loaf rather than in a bread pan.  The crust just seems better that way.

The Sun-dried tomato pesto bread is great loaded up with grainy mustard, extra old cheddar cheese (from the Wilton Cheese factory of course) and pile high with thinly sliced mortadella.  With all the Parmesan in the bread it also makes great paninis.

Alas, I can only eat one loaf at a time so I'll have to review the other loaves in the comments.