Ta da! Finally a beautiful sourdough loaf! Each loaf pretty much doubled in size from the first! And #2 and #3 were defiantly the same size of a batch, #1 was probably a smaller amount of dough, which contributes to its minuscule size...but the oven rise on it was pretty pathetic :S
But this loaf, was a whole other story! Ever since I was about 12 years old I desperately tried to make a bubbly chewy focaccia bread, but sadly never produced a satisfying loaf...
Until today! Now this loaf...this is the loaf of my dreams...ah! At long last! :D Look at those beautiful bubbles! The texture: the crust is crisp and flaky, when I give it a squeeze I can hear a soft cracking noise and feel the spongy crumb that lies beneath the surface. Then when I release the pressure, the bread springs back as quick as a cat on a trampoline! And will you just look at that bread rise! When I spied it through the oven window, in gleeful triumph I exclaimed "it looks like its just going to keep puffing up like a balloon and float off into space!" And then I fluttered off with a hop and a skip only to return to peep into the oven once more to check the progress: crouching on the floor, eying the bread like a mother hen awaiting her hatching chicks! I looked up a lot of artisanal sourdough pictures on Google and most all of them have a very flat bottom...not so for this loaf! Mine went from sagging over the edge of my too-small baking stone, to actually lifting up into the air! ...crazy, I never have I seen bread that could do that! 0_0 ....its a bird, its a plane, no...its SUPER BREAD! Duh da da daaaaa!
I used a 100% hydration sourdough starter and this fantastic recipe by Jacob Burton:
And by the end of the day, this beautiful loaf came out of the oven:
Notes on My Process:
As I was mixing the dough initially, I noticed it was quite wet, so I added more flour until it was quite stiff and was a very "shaggy mess" indeed, so then I left it to autolyse for 30 minutes. I then began to do the slap and fold method of kneading, it was a sticky mess, so I proceeded to add in more flour (and the salt) until it was just manageable and I wasn't going to end up with webbed mitts! I kept working the dough until it was able to form a nice "window" and then did the "stretch and fold" technique and let it bench rest for 10 minutes. I did a total of three "stretch and folds" followed by a 10 minute bench rest and then put it into a bowl for a couple of hours to bulk ferment while I went shopping. When I came back I did another stretch and fold and then a bunch of tension pulls and put it into a floured cloth lined bowl to rise for about 30 minutes then I looked at it and thought "this dough is definitely 1.5 to 2 times the size, I'm just going to bake it now!" (even though I knew that most instructions always say to let it rise 3-4 hours [and my first loaf I left to rise overnight it was so slow]) So I preheated the oven to 500º F (and forgot to put my soap stone baking stone in right from the start [which resulted in a slightly underdone bottom crust {that was remedied by flipping it upside down, placing it near the top of the oven and putting the broiler on to 450º F and watched it until it was browned]). I turned down the oven to 450º F then placed the dough on the bottom rack with a pan of about 1/2 cup of water underneath it for steam. I baked it for about 45 minutes until it started smelling "toasty" and then I took it out and let it cool on a rack for 1 hr, then sliced into that yummy round of bread for a taste! Yum!
Just take a look at that crumb! ;D
