I think I’ve been playing around with this sourdough for a couple of months now. My first loaf was kinda sad and disappointing. The English Muffins were divine. The second loaf was worse than the first. I believe I could have used it as a door stop! It was dense and dry and didn’t resemble traditional sourdough in the least.

I kept feeding my starter and getting it really active and bubbly. At the same time, I dove headlong into researching the intricacies of sourdough. It turns out, there is as much artistic feel for the dough as there is science involved. I came across some YouTube videos that were extremely helpful. They led me to the book, Tartine Bread. Mr. FixIt said I could get whatever I needed for my bread baking forays as my birthday gift. So, I bought a cast iron dutch oven and the Tartine Bread book.

I’ve been studying it carefully for about a week. There are copious photos illustrating each step of the process. This particular recipe is for the Basic Country Loaf and is enough for two loaves of bread. We happened to have a large Dutch oven so until my smaller one comes, I used the one we have. It worked fine…just heavy and awkward and when you are dealing with a cast iron pot that is 500℉, you want something that isn’t quite so unwieldy. 

It took all day Sunday to get the loaves ready for the final rise. But the time they got to that point, it was 10:00 at night and I was NOT going to wait another three to four hours for that rise, then another hour and half to bake (forty-five minutes per loaf, one loaf at a time.) Fortunately, there was a paragraph that let me off the hook. It said if you weren’t prepared to bake at that point, you could cover the bowls of dough and place them in the refrigerator for up to twelve hours. Eureka! In the refrigerator in the garage they went!

Yesterday morning, I cranked up the oven to 500℉ with the empty cast iron Dutch oven inside. When it came to temperature, I got it out and set the loaf in on parchment paper, scored the top of the loaf, put on the lid and popped it back in the oven. I turned the heat down to 450…still MUCH hotter than I ever would have imagined baking a loaf of bread. Twenty minutes later, I took the lid off the Dutch oven and was amazed at the oven spring the loaf had attained. It was pale with a shiny skin on it and nearly filled the Dutch oven. It baked uncovered for another 25 minutes and when I took it out, I could have cried. It was that beautiful.

I took it out, paper and all, and placed the cast iron pot back in the oven and cranked it back up to 500℉. When it was ready, I repeated the whole thing. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn the heat down to 450 this time and the loaf was a little darker than I would have liked. And it didn’t attain quite the same degree of oven spring as the first loaf because the higher heat killed off the yeast before it could get that lovely rise. Still, both loaves were lovely and a far cry better than either of my first attempts.

I have such a sense of accomplishment! The Tartine Bread book comes from Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. He designed the recipe so you could make loaves that look exactly like their bread. I didn’t have his same starter, of course. Nor did I have freshly milled flour, but the bread I made certainly held its own in comparison. When you thumped on the bottom of the loaf, it sounded hollow. The recipe uses a very hydrated dough and you can tell all that moisture got cooked off. The crumb was tender and airy with almost a custard feel on the tongue. It was not overly sour which was nice. I made toast with it right off. Then we had sandwiches with it for an early supper.

The only thing that gave me any trouble was the crust. It’s beautiful, but we don’t have a single knife at the house that could easily slice it…not even the electric knife. A friend suggested a Cutco bread knife. I’ll have to do some research on that. In the meantime, the daytime temps are rising this week, so no bread baking for me for a while. I’ll make some English Muffins, though. I can do those in an iron skillet on top of the stove. And, it looks like last night was probably the last in the camper for a while, too. At least until we get the power run out there.

I wonder what my next project will be?

❤️

“But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’””

Matthew 4:4 ESV