The most Open Crumb of Sourdoughs

 From Bread Every Day and  having refreshed my rye sourdough starter the night before, I followed the timings given in the recipe and starting at 3:30 p.m., pulled two fabulous loaves out of the oven at around 9:00 am the following day.  There is an online tutorial by Jack, and if you search he has the recipe on line but this one is for one loaf only.

Usually I amend recipes to fit the size of bannetons I have and since I only had one oval banneton of the right size, I was totally amazed that when I walked into my local independent hardware stone, there was the twin of mine at a very reasonable price...and no I did not get the small hand sprayer for the water, so must go back for that soon. 

This is the first time I have made a totally no knead sourdough, as I usually do a ten minute knead as well as the stretches following the hours of rest.

These are the loaves as they came out of the fridge on day 2, ready for baking.  After about 10 hours uncovered in the fridge they had developed a good outer skin, and were easy to turn out and score.

                                    

These days I drape some muslin across the banneton rather than risk them sticking and with a new one this is even more likely.  I quickly found a spare piece of muslin from my cheesemaking kit, the whiter one. I do reuse baking parchment several times as it is not recyclable. 

Sourdough turned out and ready to be slashed

There was plenty of oven lift, 

and what is called a good ear on both the loaves.

Here with the open crumb one can see the effect of a no knead bread with large holes evenly dispersed.  The whole wheat rye gives a light brown colour and a great taste. On the whole I prefer the type of dough which has smaller holes and will incorporate a few minutes proper kneading when I next try this same recipe.  

I do enjoy trying different techniques and also improvising.  Although I already have a large round Welsh Baking stone or griddle which I can put in the oven for pizza or a large round sourdough, I don't really want to buy another one or two oblong baking stones.  Instead I put in two of my very heavy and strong Silverwood baking sheets, the first of which I acquired over twenty years ago.  I add these to the shelves when I am preheating the oven.  Turn the dough onto a piece of parchment, slip it onto another upturned but cold tray, then slide the loaves and baking parchment onto the preheated trays.  It does the job for me and I don't need a peel as the cold tray acts as one.  

When I looked at the picture with the muslins, I had a slight niggle or rather an embarrassment that they were rather untidy with frayed edges on both the new and the old one which had been washed a number of times.  I remembered my friend Kay who patiently over several years brought out some needle skills in me, and using Youtube found a good one demonstrating how to sew a rolled edge. Resting up, I found the repetitive action and concentration needed rather therapeutic.  I found that I wanted to make the muslins as square as possible and found drawing through one of the threads left me with good cutting guide line.  Here are the cloths now newly washed but unironed.  

Rolled edged banneton cloth linings.

 

Sourdough freestyle

 I had part of a bag of Allinson's blended Einkorn flour left which went part way to making this week's bread baking event. It got further blended with some plain strong flour and also some golden linseeds which were part ground in the 'coffee grinder'.  Sadly no notes were taken at the time, and no repeats of this delicious loaf is possible. The Allinson's flour worked very well both neat and blended, but it is no longer available at my local Morrisons, I feel that either a bag from Shipton Mill or Dove's Farm Einkorn flour blended at home with some strong flour would do just as well. The flavour of Einkorn bread is rich and delicious. 

With the cooler weather I will need to shift the timings.  When it is warm it is possible to do a refresh the night before, and get the whole sourdough process done in one day, but this week, the bread was slower, and didn't go into the oven till 10:15 pm, and hence had to cool under a cloth as it would need a few hours to cool and I was ready for bed.  I love this old linen huckaback cloth, and here they are in the morning 'undressed'.  The larger loaf went into the bread bin, and the two smaller loaves were frozen.

It also makes excellent toast, which we shall have with pate this lunch time.