Yesterday I got a gentle prompt from
the missus that we were running out of bread. Time for another loaf.
The last one was not half bad, having
sunflower and pumpkin seeds along with the rye. Although it did not
rise as expected, the bread lasted long enough for me to take a loaf
on board the yacht for the voyage from Port Owen on the West Coast
to Gordon's Bay around Cape Point. Good food to have on board.
I was a bit miffed about my starter
after my last baking experiment, until I realised that I may have had
the dough too runny and did not allow sufficient rise time.
This time around I made a starter by
washing the sourdough, dividing it in two and feeding it white bread
flour. (AP flour for my American readers.)
As an aside, it seems that my
terminology and practices may be frowned upon by some of our friends
in the sourdough world. I recently had the ignominous experience of
having my reply reference “washing” of the starter on a blog
question removed and replaced by a very scientific explanation from
someone else. This after I quoted my reference quite diligently.
Interesting indeed, even if I felt taken aback.
Anyway, getting back to my present
experiment, I made a reasonably soft dough. Three cups of white bread
flour, one cup of brown bread flour, salt and water. The starter was
also made with another cup of white bread flour. This lot was left to
rise for two hours, then I added a little more water. The dough was
now decidedly soft, but I left it to rise overnight. Patience is a
real virtue here! This was very successful with the dough almost
tripling in volume. However, the dough was collapsing on itself, so I
had to knead in a little flour again, about half a cup. 
This lot was
split into two parts, patted into long, thin loaves and left to rise
in bread pans while I went swimming and tended to my other errands.
By the time I got back two hours later, the dough was dripping out of
the bread pans.
Time for some contemplation.
The decision went to adding yet some
more flour, about half a cup again, then splitting the dough into two
halves for making a pair of round artisan style loaves. I added some
caraway seeds for garnish and baked them for 45 minutes at
190ºC/375ºF on my paving
bricks. There was also my normal (by now) tin of boiling water in the
bottom of the oven.
This
time around the bread came out magnificent, no over-baking, solid
crust and a nice spongy crumb. I was rather hoping for some nice big
fermentation holes in the crumb, but it seems that I missed the boat
this time around. Some more attention to quantities next time,
methinks. The loaves were left for an hour to cool down.
Now
for the discipline of not consuming all of this before dinner!
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