David Esq.'s blog

There is a lot of discussion of Chad Robertson's Basic Country Loaf, as written about in Tartine Bread. This was the first truly successful loaf I ever baked, having purchased the book because I wanted something extraordinary to bake with the sourdough starter that I had been in the process of developing while trying to figure out how to bake with yeast. 

I live in New York, and I have a pretty good selection of fine pizzerias from which I can get pizza.  The same can pretty much be said for having a good selection of fine breads.  In fact, every day, I walk through Grand Central Station and pass by a market that has some very good loaves at reasonable prices (unlike everything else in that market.)

Every day, I pass a homeless lady who stands in the side-doorway of church that I pass by on the way to work.

I decided that I ought to give her one of my extra loaves of bread, and this morning I did so.  She was very appreciative and, dare I say, excited to be gifted the loaf.

I told her it took me three days to make it, and she said "Three days?!" so I explained it was a sourdough and she understood right away.

Here it was after proofing overnight in the fridge.

I have been baking these breads for several months.  I typically use my unfed (for a week) starter straight from the fridge, mix it with 200 grams of water, 100 grams of King Arthur AP and 100 grams of King Arthur White Whole Wheat.

I have been baking nothing but the basic country loaf now for several months, and my breads have always come out pretty good, though varying considerably in flavor.

I am a weekend baker and have wanted to get my bakes done early Saturday instead of late Saturday night or early Sunday.  So I decided to take another stab at doing things backwards.

Friday morning, I took my starter out of the fridge (last fed, a week earlier), and created the leaven.

This weekend's bake started Friday evening -- I removed my starter (housed in a 1/2 pint mason jar) from the fridge and added a tablespoon (yes, I use a tablespoon and it generally weighs from 18-22 grams) of starter and added it to 200 grams of cool water. I added 100 grams of KA organic all purpose flour and 100 grams of flour that I blended from hard winter red wheat berries the previous week and let the mixture sit overnight.

I have been grinding flour in my bleNader, using 200 grams hard winter red berries to 800 grams all purpose flour and making my 200 grams of levain with either 100 grams of the fresh flour or using a 50/50 blend. 

Went to visit friends this weekend and decided to being my Tartine Basic Country Loaf to share. I learned her parents use to be wholesale bakers with 30 retail customers, so I finally had a worthy critic to test my bread. 

The loaf had been frozen for a week or so, thawed on Friday and reheated on sunday. I heated it at 350 for 10-13 minutes and then cut it up. She said it rivaled the finest bakeries. 

It it was a great complement. She also said I can open a store. That is when my wife stopped translating!

Lately, when making the Chad Robertson Basic Country Loaf, rather than "save" the remaining 200 grams of levain (recall, baked with it all for my first loaf, by accident.  The bread came out nice but I think it was a bit too chewy), I have been making another 2 loaves worth of dough.  This results in a surplus bread.   So I have been making Pizzas:

300 grams white whole wheat

400 grams spelt

300 grams AP

800 grams water

mixed the above and left out at room temp overnight while my mature starter was left to make my leaven. 

In the morning, I combined the leaven with the dough and added 20 grams of salt. Stretch and fold x 6 over 4 hours and baked 20 minutes covered and 20 minutes uncovered (450).