Possibly my best sourdough
I've been baking sourdoughs for many years but I am admittedly imprecise and quite neglectful. It usually turns out "good enough" but rarely are my loaves great.
These ones were.
I mixed up AP flour and water at about 68% hydration, then added my ripe starter (which I have no idea what the hydration is). I ran the mixer a bit longer than usual and gave the dough a longer than average rise on the counter, approximately 6 hours. I shaped two rounds and rather than putting them in bannetons, let them rise on parchment and wrapped them with tea towels to prevent them from spreading.
The one other thing I did differently was bake them directly on my baking stones with inverted enamel pots over them for the first 25 minutes. That gave me both the benefit of a hot stone and allowed them to steam themselves. The crust was probably the thinnest and crackliest I've ever made at home.
Definitely one I will try to reproduce again soon!
Comments
Nice work, Floyd.
Paul
Those are beauties Floyd, anyone would be pleased with those.
Benny
You need to put those up as the page headliner!
Heh. Yeah... but there is that whole "reproducibility" issue. I try to feature posts that include clear steps and/or formulas that others could learn from. Unfortunately for this one I can't be any more specific than "well you put some flour and water and starter in a bowl and... leave it... for a while. How much? ... Some." Not terribly helpful, I realize.
Assuming you are obliged to stay home where you are (NZ is on total lockdown, we all have to stay home only supermarkets, pharmacy, petrol stations and banks are open to the public, all on restricted hours and restricted number of people inside, our borders are closed) then perhaps you will have time to do some replication runs ?.
I'm in BC in Canada and, yes, about the same here.
They should definitely go to the homepage! God bless and I hope you're safe!
Very nice looking loaves, Floyd. Wished we could share taste over the Internet.
It seems from your description of your method that you didn’t retard the loaves. That is surprising when you notice the beautiful blisters covering each loaf. What’s the scoop?
I noticed the blisters and made the same comment. No, I didn't retard them. Our apartment is cool but I wouldn't think cool enough to cause that. I don't know how they got there, but I like them too.
Totally classic sourdough breads. They look delicious.
Happy baking!
David
I also noticed that you used All Purpose flour.
I ask everyone -
Don’t you find the flavor of lower protein flours produce better tasting breads?
I found the flavour of this one quite mild actually. It's still recognizably a sourdough but not as sour as I often get. I'm not sure if that is because it was all AP flour or because I typically include between 10 and 30 percent whole wheat or rye flour or because the fermentation wasn't as long or active as I sometimes get. So... I'd give this one maybe a 9 for appearance and crumb, but it probably only gets a 6 for complexity of flavour. Still fantastic with cheese or a bowl of soup though.
Good enough to be featured for a month i think Floyd!