Well you know how one thing sort of leads into another and although it seems a bit odd there is a definite logic to that route? This is one of them.
After a gap of a couple of years, I’ve started a starter.
A sourdough starter that is, it is on it’s fifth loaf now which means that it is going to get good (hopefully) because the last time I did this the fifth loaf was the best but unfortunately paid work got in the way and I’m sure you can fill in the rest. Anyway, this time I used a mainstream ordinary strong bread flour and although I know that sourdough is supposed to be a wet mix this was just ridiculous with my bread looking more like a cow pat in shape than those gorgeous artisan loaves one sees in food porn. I thought that it was the shape of my proving basket (you see where I’m going?) which is a long oval shallow affair was not helping and looking online for a proving basket, proved to be more than I wanted to pay. There are two solutions to this; a) look in charity shops, which is not yielding up anything yet,or b) learn to make a basket. As you can imagine I’m opting for plan B.
However, although I’ve got some books and some willow rods on the way, a development has happened on the bread front. After a bit of reading round the subject, I came to the conclusion the the flour I had been using did not have a high enough gluten content so I changed to good old Doves Farm Organic and it has made a world of difference-for one thing the dough does not try a run off the side of the worktop, and the taste!…..For this fifth loaf the flour in the starter has been gradually and finally been switched over to Doves Farm Flour and I’m looking forward to the bake with greedy anticipation.
In the meantime I’ve gone too far down the basket making route to back out now, it’ll probably take less time than the bread.
I ain’t no basket case!
Well you know how one thing sort of leads into another and although it seems a bit odd there is a definite logic to that route? This is one of them.
After a gap of a couple of years, I’ve started a starter.
A sourdough starter that is, it is on it’s fifth loaf now which means that it is going to get good (hopefully) because the last time I did this the fifth loaf was the best but unfortunately paid work got in the way and I’m sure you can fill in the rest. Anyway, this time I used a mainstream ordinary strong bread flour and although I know that sourdough is supposed to be a wet mix this was just ridiculous with my bread looking more like a cow pat in shape than those gorgeous artisan loaves one sees in food porn. I thought that it was the shape of my proving basket (you see where I’m going?) which is a long oval shallow affair was not helping and looking online for a proving basket, proved to be more than I wanted to pay. There are two solutions to this; a) look in charity shops, which is not yielding up anything yet,or b) learn to make a basket. As you can imagine I’m opting for plan B.
However, although I’ve got some books and some willow rods on the way, a development has happened on the bread front. After a bit of reading round the subject, I came to the conclusion the the flour I had been using did not have a high enough gluten content so I changed to good old Doves Farm Organic and it has made a world of difference-for one thing the dough does not try a run off the side of the worktop, and the taste!…..For this fifth loaf the flour in the starter has been gradually and finally been switched over to Doves Farm Flour and I’m looking forward to the bake with greedy anticipation.
In the meantime I’ve gone too far down the basket making route to back out now, it’ll probably take less time than the bread.