Back to Sourdough

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It seems like I’ve been doing more baking than cooking lately so rather than post a recipe this time, I’d like to show off one of my latest baking successes.
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I purchased a sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour quite a while ago and I’ve been maintaining it despite the fact that I took quite a long a break from baking with it. Sourdough is finicky sometimes (especially when you’re new to baking with it) and I became a little disheartened after my last attempt. Everything had been going well and I had turned out quite a few great loaves of sourdough so it was frustrating when I saw two days of work collapse into an unmanageable pile of goo after I accidentally let it proof too long after shaping. That was actually my second sourdough disaster. So, I decided I needed a little break from it. Fortunately, the break didn’t last too long because I started craving the stuff!
I brought my little sourdough starter crock out from the fridge, fed it a few times over the course of a couple days to make sure it was nice and happy, then made my dough. Usually I start by making a sponge, which increases the flavor of the bread and makes it “extra-sour” the way I like it. But this time, I followed a new recipe that uses twice as much starter and no sponge. I thought I’d try it and see how I liked a lighter-tasting bread.
Another change I made this time around was letting the bread rise in proofing baskets (ok, so I really used colanders…I don’t own any real proofing baskets) that I lined with floured kitchen towels. It worked pretty well except the towels stuck to the bread a little more than I would have liked. Next time, I’ll use more flour! But it was nice to let the basket shape the bread instead of dealing with trying to shape the super-soft, sticky dough into nice looking loaves myself. All I had to do was turn the proofed loaves out onto a piece of parchment paper on top of my peel and slide them right onto my baking stone.
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The only real problem I had this time around was I let the oven get too hot and one of the loaves burned a little. They tasted great even though they weren’t quite as sour as normal. The crust was good and the crumb was nice and open…perfect for soaking up lots of butter!
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Now that I’m feeling confident again, I’ll probably try to get in the habit of baking it once a week. I might not be able to eat it all myself but I can really use the practice and it’s not hard to find someone willing to take some fresh-baked bread off my hands!

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