Well. What better place to start than the mammoth effort of a couple of loaves of sourdough bread.
Last week a work colleague very generously gave me some of her sourdough starter, and I must admit I was thrilled to have such a head-start! I have made my own sourdough starters before, and although it's rewarding, it isn't necessarily a process designed for the more impatient bakers among us! After feeding this one madly for a week or so, I began the bread early Sunday morning and nervously followed the recipe, checking the details twice and timing the dough-kneading sessions exactly. After a process of many short kneads and many short resting times I arrived at the final rise at about midday, then set about my day, leaving it to rise for about 4 hours. Shortly thereafter was where it all seemed to come a bit unstuck . You see my loaves were sitting side-by-side, seperated by a flour-dusted teatowel (as per the recipe instructions) and they looked lovely! Soft and light, and I was thrilled that they seemed to have worked so well! Then came the issue of getting them onto the baking stone and... the loaves not only stuck to the teatowel, they seemed to deflate and shrivel right before my eyes! I oh-so-carefully tried to up-end them onto my pizza stone, then slashed them and sprayed them frantically with water before putting them into the oven, but alas. They seemed to stay a bit deflated and they spread out more than up in the oven.
I think the results are okay, all things considered. The bread is chewy and really tasty, it has that lovely authentic 'sour' taste, and a very crunchy crust that is great! However neither of the loaves has as much height as I would have liked.
Maybe next time I will leave the loaves to rise individually, rather than side-by side as this seemed to make it all the more tricky to get them into the oven individually. Also, maybe I will try to find myself a wicker basket in the shape of a narrow loaf so I get more height in the final rise.
All in all a really satisfying weekend experience. The ultimate in slow food.
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