I was hoping to do some cooking last weekend, but the weather didn’t cooperate.  I’m almost embarrassed to admit that, but the one type of weather I don’t like to cook during is rain, especially freezing rain!  We got about 5" of snow yesterday, with rain following.  As it turned out, I probably could have gotten away with it, but I just baked instead.

I wanted to try my new sourdough starter, and my wife wanted pumpernickel bread, so I decided to do a sourdough pumpernickel.  The recipe was from King Arthur Flour; I wanted to do one from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, but I didn’t realize that just about all the recipes there require time the night before.  Even with sourdoughs, I think the recipes call for some work, letting the starter/poolish rest for a few hours, then refrigerating it.  I didn’t start until after 9:00 PM, so that was out.

The recipe was different than I expected; instead of just flour, yeast and water, it also called for a touch of vegetable oil and a cup of coffee, along with a quarter cup of molasses.

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