The Tuesday update will be all about bread, which is considered "off-topic" here so I can't put the pics in this thread. What I
can do is link you to the individual pics in my gallery. I apologize in advance for the fact that I am making you look at two different pages for the information, if you bother looking at all
. The
Back button is now your friend.
After proofing (fancy work for rising) in the fridge for 24 hours, I uncovered the dough to find it hadn't proofed at all. It was still a lump of sticky dough. But that wasn't enough to deter me from finishing the process I started (and spent a lot of time on over the past week!), so
I floured the top and prepared to bake it.
Since I didn't have any parchment paper, I thought I would
cut up a brown paper bag to put the dough on. The paper makes it much easier to drop the dough into the Dutch oven, which has been pre-heated to 500ºF. (NB: some enameled Dutch ovens can not be heated empty. Mine is just cast iron.)
I flipped the bowl of dough onto the paper and
scored the top with a clean razor blade. This is done to keep the dough from splitting in random places as it rises, which is
normally what dough does when you bake it. You can see in the pic that it is still spreading! Gotta move fast...
Here is it
dropped into the smoking hot Dutch oven. I set the oven to 450ºF and let it bake for 20 minutes with the lid on. Then it bakes another 20 minutes with the lid off.
I saw a recommendation to turn off the oven when it's done but leave it in there with the door cracked open for another 20 minutes. This is supposed to improve the crust. I did that because why the heck not.
Here it is
out of the oven! Other than the weird shape caused by the spread against the paper, it looks like bread.
I let it cool a bit more and then tried peeling off the paper. Oof! It was stuck to most of the bottom and sides
. But I did peel enough off to
cut a few slices and try it.
It was a bit chewy and pretty sour, but toasted with butter it wasn't too bad, all things considered. Still, because it was coated in paper and too sour for the rest of my family to want, I tossed it along with the second ball of dough.
And then dumped half the remaining starter and fed the rest 50g of white flower, 50g of whole wheat flour, and 100g of distilled water. I mixed it all up and put it in the warmest room in the house. By this morning
you can see it had doubled in size, but settled back down to about a 40% gain. Apparently this is normal.
So...what are the lessons for next time?
1. The longer you wait after feeding to add the starter to your dough, the more sour it is and the less active it is. So I'll be feeding it in the morning for use in the afternoon.
2. Buy parchment paper and flour it before you put the dough on.
3. Don't mess with the recipe. If it calls for 90% white and 10% wheat, use that!
4. Distilled is probably better for starter than water with chloramine.
5. Leave an hour between each turn-and-fold when the weather is cooler.
That's all I can think of for now, but any other suggestions are welcome! Thanks for listening, and thanks for all your input along the way.
yee haw your off and baking, won't be long now. I don't use parchment paper and I try to drop the loaf right in the center before scoring. way cool Shed
. When I get to your level, maybe then. Thanks for setting me down this road!
