A few weeks ago, I got into my head that I wanted to try to bake sourdough bread… and it’s taken weeks from that thought becoming an actual loaf…
Relying on a book I bought a while back (the Bourke Street Bakery Ultimate Baking Companion), I started my starter… a little flour and a little water… a little more flour and a little more water… and soon-ish it was bubbling away…
I nearly killed it at one point… I forgot to feed it one day, all sorts of grey liquid on top and an acetone smell, but I managed to bring it back… I also had to keep it in the fridge at some points, as it was going nuts and I felt it was growing way too fast… but I admit to not being consistent at the time of day to feed…
The days before baking, it was feed feed feed… then a late evening mix, prove, knock back, prove and shape into batards, for the final prove overnight in the fridge… The next morning, they were out of the fridge to finish their prove for a few hours before baking. I’m not sure if they were supposed to get bigger – they didn’t seem to get as big as I thought they would, but they sprang back as supposed to, so bake time !
I didn’t want to take a risk of baking all at once and stuff up all three loaves (the standard recipe), so decided to bake one first, then the other two after…
The book said to have the oven on high, put the loaf in, spray water in, and not changing the temperature – I was worried that this was too hot, but went with it anyway…
I got it out, tapped the bottom, sounded hollow, seemed done – but I thought that the crust was a bit harder than I was expecting… then I realised, the oven was on fan-forced – perhaps that made the oven too hot, the bread a little crusty…
So, for the next two loaves, I decided to turn the oven to not fan-forced…
If only my oven dial was a bit clearer… it was halfway through baking, when I had a quick peek in the oven that I realised it appeared to be on grill ! oops !
Instead of being less crusty, these two loaves had harder, darker crusts on top !
On a positive, everything except for the dark top was really delicious – tasted great fresh (with too much butter!), made great sandwiches for hiking the next day, and the slices taken with me toasted beautifully a few days later… sweet !
The remaining starter is still alive, living in the fridge, being fed every couple of days or so… ready for the next attempt, when I’m sure I’ll do a better job of baking !
wool|flour|dirt 