Simplification

This week, I am going to take one of my successful recipes and try to streamline the process.  So far, my process is:

1. Refresh the starter by discarding half and adding 4 oz. (¾ cup) of flour and 4 oz. (½ cup) of water.  Put that in a warm place for 6-8 hours.
2. Prepare the sponge for me new loaf.  Put that in a warm place for 6-8 hours.
3. Combine the ingredients in my bread machine and press "Start."

Now, one of the first two steps can run overnight, but for the other, I need to be home at the start and end of the 6-8 hour growth phase.  This week's experiment is to try letting the sponge grow on top of the rest of the ingredients in the bread pan.  I'll set the bread machine on the delay timer so that the sponge gets its 6-8 hours of development time. Then, the machine will start mixing automatically.  I hope to come home or wake up to a fresh loaf of bread.

I'm in the mood for a rye bread, but looking back at my last attempt, I think I'd like to be present for the mixing cycle to decide how much "as needed" water is needed.  Instead, I'll use the whole wheat recipe that I've been working on for some time.

My starter is down in the happy yeast room, getting refreshed.  In the meantime, I am going to put the remaining ingredients in the bread pan.

Whole Wheat
Water	5 oz.
Whole wheat flour	2 ¼  cups
White flour	¼ cup
Vital Gluten	1 Tbl
Salt	1 tsp
Butter	1 ½ Tbl
Honey	¼ cup

The flour needs to go in last so that the sponge doesn't mix with the other ingredients until the bread machine starts mixing.  After the sourdough starter was poured on top of that mixture, my bread pan looks like this:

I set the timer to have a finished loaf in 12 hours.  The mix-rise-bake cycle is 3 hours and 40 minutes, so that leaves 8 hours and 20 minutes for the sponge to grow. Time for bed.

I woke up just before the mixing cycle started.  The sponge on top of the rest looked like this:

It's kind of hard to judge the activity with it spread all over.  After the first mixing cycle, the dough ball looked like this:

I was tempted to add a bit of water, but this is an experiment in turning a 3-step process into 2 steps.  Plus, it didn't look too bad.  During the second mixing cycle, it looked healthy, sticking slightly to the sides of the pan as the paddle spun it around.

At the end of that cycle, the dough even looked a little limp.  I'm convinced that it has enough water.

The result looked much like the 3-step loaf.
2-step loaf:

3-step loaf:

So, I'd call this experiment a success.