watercolor rose on sourdough
This was my third experiment with watercoloring on sourdough. For the first experiment check out watercolor blue leafs on sourdough.. That post contains tips and tricks.
Interested to know what bread recipe I used? For the full review go here.
ingredients
red food gel
green food gel
2 ounces of vodka
steps
Prep Watercolors. Squeeze food gel into a small prep bowl. I recommend using no more than 1/4 teaspoon to start. In a separate bowl put 1-2 ounces of vodka.
Pro tip: If you are interested in a lighter version of your color, I would recommend getting a second bowl with half the amount of food gel.
Prep bread. About 30 minutes before your dough is ready to go into the oven, it is time to do the painting. Turn out your loafs from your banneton as you normally would. Dust with flour or not, it is a preference thing.
To Dust with Flour: Lightly dust with flour using a sifter. Yes, you are putting on flour pre-painting. If you plan on having an intricate scoring design with your watercoloring, I would recommend it.
To Not Dust with Flour: If you are not a sourdough baker that likes to dust after turning out, you can skip this step. , as dusting after turning out can help enhance clarity for any scoring that occurs. If you plan on having one clean score line, you can always just dust around there.
Watercolor! Using your brush, treat your vodka like water and add to your color. This will make it more viscous and more like a watercolor. Start painting! I recommend painting the roses first. Unlike a normal watercolor rose, where you create an ombre with the center of the rose darkest, and it fades out. I suggest keeping it a solid red throughout because the faded red will disappear in the bake. After you add your roses, add the leaves around.
Pro Tip: If left out, you will notice that you will have to add more vodka as it starts to evaporate. And unlike your normal watercolors, you do need to wash out your paint trays after you are done. It is still food.
Score Loaf. I prefer to score the loaf after watercoloring because the exterior of the loaf is taught. After scoring, the loaf starts to relax and shift, making it a moving target to paint.
Bake according to your recipe.
Fun Tip: I baked this bad boy on my Traeger grill.