long-time reader first-time bread-maker

I made them! I didn't roll them thin enough but they're still great. So flavourful and tangy. Impossible to stop eating them, basically.

I spoke w/my bread sensei about making sourdough more sour and she says:

'To get a tangier loaf you need to use a more mature leaven and a more well fermented dough. Ferment your leaven until it tastes nice and sour. Also using dark rye in your dough can help it ferment more to get tangier flavours'

Nice, my partner made sourdough crackers with the discard too once. Lately she's only been feeding her starter when she's going to bake, and there hasn't been any discard.

Btw I was watching a Bon Appetit video that specifically mentioned covering the dough to prevent a skin forming + inhibiting gluten structure.

Yeah I don't usually have 250g of 'extra' starter. I actually made a kind of levain in order to have enough!!

Btw I was watching a Bon Appetit video that specifically mentioned covering the dough to prevent a skin forming + inhibiting gluten structure.

yeah a week on and tbh I have had good and bad results with the "uncovered in the fridge" technique

i just want to announce, slightly feebly but also very proudly, that i made two *very simple* but *fantastically successful* tinned yeasted loaves yesterday. that is all.

Awesome :)

I've been making more tinned loaves lately.

i have to decide what to make at the weekend after my mixed success with the gougeres (they tasted nice but they totally didn't rise properly, they were more like very excellent cheese scones)

Latest:

http://imgur.com/gallery/CBYFeEV

Majestic beast!

My wife made pancakes this morning from excess sourdough starter. They were so good: light, fluffy, lots of flavor.

Though maybe that should go in the cooking thread.

i reckon knowing what to do with spare starter is a useful thing to go here.

after my wild success with yeasted tinned wholemeal loaves, i thought i’d do a white bloomer. my shaking and handling was poor throughout and due to some contradictory info from my oven thermometer i think my oven temp was too hot. so it’s almost but not quite burned on the outside, and the base isn’t as solid as i’d like.

quite pleased to have some info to learn from though, and do better next time.

photo link here

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_cqPb7HXZh/?igshid=x1jbqgygei03

*shaping not shaking

That looks pretty good to me.

Me too! How does/did it taste?

Looking good!

Once I've got a jar of discard I use it for pancakes - add an egg, salt, bicarb then milk and flour until it looks like a batter.

Today - rushing a fairly standard boule. Using about 1/3 wholemeal so threw in a bit more water than usual. lol sticky.

oh it tastes great! v pleased.

making a very basic white crusty bread from a BBC recipe which while simple also manages to be annoying and unclear in places: "pat the dough into an oval and roll it up tightly" -- roll it up in which direction? i guessed along the longer axis but

also the phrase "if flavours are your thing" enrages me -- no, no they're not, i aim for full-on flavourlessness and so should you

I’ve been using Kronjast fresh yeast recently, in the absence of anything else, and it is very good. Made a loaf of white / spelt with pekmez and thyme today and it turned out great.

and here it is: interestingly it caught along the split on the top before the base was even non-doughy, so maybe i had it too hot this time? i flipped it on its back for the last ten mins and the base baked properly also

https://files.slack.com/files-pri/TV20059EW-F013BERFP8R/2020-05-03_16.31.30-2.jpg

https://files.slack.com/files-tmb/TV20059EW-F013BERFPB3-f0e3a0d07d/2020-05-03_16.32.28-1_720.jpg

another possible reason: quite a lot of oil ended up in the dough from my kneading hands and the surface and the "lightly oiled" bowl

i used olive oil bcz that's what i had and i know that can burn when you fry?

can’t see the pics for some reason.

it might have been too high in the oven. you want it about midway up.

were you baking in a tin?

i doubt the oil made any difference.

they're linked from slack, sorry, probably only visible if you're signed in

https://i.imgur.com/GEhXikf.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/0pOxM0X.jpg

they look great! almost burnt on top is very on-trend.

what were they baking ON? a metal tray?

yes, cheap flat metal tray, very slight raised lip

possible it was up too close to the roof of the oven?

or maybe you accidentally had the grill on or something?

oops lol, yes i think i did :D

ffs

i think it looks v good tbh.

i made a second bloomer this week, which i think must have been slightly underproved or poorly shaped because it burst out at the side, and a stone baked “artisan” loaf today which i think may have been underproved because it didn’t burst out at all.

Oh hi there, loving all this bread baking deliciousness.

Today I made cheese and chive bread, and discovered the wonder of using sourdough discard in crackers (similar to the one posted above but more freeform and crazy flavors)

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_5SKB6HYxe/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_4y9gDnRuw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

(hello to those I know, came back for the Outbreak! thread, staying for the bread)

crackers look great. i’m still at novice yeast stage but was so pleased with this loaf and bread. tbh it’s perfect and toasted v well too.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_5cbsaH3WN/?igshid=yjerih01jdsv

i can't see the pic fizzles

let’s try again. https://www.instagram.com/p/B_5dI_AHU7c/?igshid=o1hzwtrasz51

need to do the split with a razor blade rather than a stanley knife tho, as it’s ragged and too deep. v pleased otherwise.

woah that ear is awesome!

ran out of doves farm brown bread flour last week and picked up a 5kg sack of italian wholemeal from the poncy Haringay Local Shop place on Green Lanes out of desperation. Making my first loaf with it today, and it is incredibly fine, and has none of the pleasing lumps of wheatgerm in it the usual flour has. Preparing to be disappointed...

looking good fizz!!

: )

am interesting to see how stevie's fine italian wholemeal works out.

also interested.

it itersting!

just shaped the loaves and dumped them in the bannetons. First thoughts - dough is still v elastic, moreso than usual. Has been easier to shape the loaves, but will they hold those shapes when time to cook comes? Am using 10% wholemeal flour to 90% white Caputo red 00 (which quickly replaced white bread flour for me when I stopped being able to buy that a month or so ago) so it is very different from how I used to make bread before lockdown (and before I was having to make four or so loaves a week to keep up with family demand).

made sourdough bread for the first time last week and it turned out great. i've just taken my second try out of the oven an hour ago and it looks spectacular. i did not think i could derive this much joy from such a simple thing. my wife is making fun of me cause i just keep going back to the kitchen to stare at it.

ONE OF US

lol just wait til you start taking pictures of your BRED and sending them to you friends

haha i have definitely already done that

Yeah, I derive a unique satisfaction from baking compared to cooking, though I do A LOT of cooking and not as much baking (until recently). I think one factor is the mysteriousness of baking - unlike cooking where you can taste along the way and get a sense of where things are going, you never know how baking will turn out until the moment of truth - the dough/batter/whatever goes into the oven as one thing and comes out suddenly and utterly transformed.

after feeding my sourdough starter each day for a week and making the dough yesterday, I just finished baking my first loaf of bread. I'm letting it cool now. It looks amazing. If this tastes as good as it looks, I'm never bothering to buy bread again