Overnight Country Blonde (FWSY) a delicious disaster
I made the Overnight Country Blonde recipe from Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast. The timelines in Forkish's recipes are based on a cool ambient temperature, and I've been adjusting as needed, but this particular recipe ended up so over-fermented that I ended up with a sticky pool of batter when it came time to shape.
I ended up pouring one loaf into a loaf pan and dropping another (splat) into a dutch oven to see what would happen. The loaf pan stuck like crazy and had to be chiseled out, while the dutch oven produced a small frisbee that almost resembled cornbread.
But both loaves were absolutely delicious. They were very dense, and not at all what I was going for, but the crumb was moist and tangy while the crust was pleasantly chewy. Great with olive oil or toasted with butter.
I can't wait to make this recipe again, partly to see what it ends up like when not horribly over-fermented, and partly because I know that the worst case scenario is still an amazing treat.
in spite of the dough being soup! Having a cool kitchen or a cool spot for the recipes in the book is crucial. I baked my way through the book with no problems (I live in Canada where there is no lack of cold during the winter months) so I was quite surprised when I joined this community and read all the problems people were having with his fermentation times. The best advice I read was to ignore his times and follow the dough description such as doubling or tripling.
One last thing, when you get to the part of making sourdough in the book, only make a fraction of what Forkish recommends unless you don’t mind throwing out pounds and pounds of flour.
Did you take pictures?
Sadly I didn't take any pictures of these. Next time :)