Bread Blues

Well, sometimes I share victories, but today it's not the case. I am feeling quite miserable about bread baking this weekend.

where do I start?

I am a HUGE Hamelman & Dan Lepard's fan. Every single bread I made from their books turned out great. Then I bought Local Breads and fell in love with the book, read it beginning to end, could not wait to try my first recipe.

I picked "Como Bread", for those who have the book, it is on page222 

it takes a biga that sits overnight in the fridge, and is used for a high hydration dough, to be mixed by the Kitchen Aid, preferably.

Friday eve I made the biga. Saturday morning started the bread - it rises first for 2 - 2.5 hs until doubled in volume. Formed into a ball, rises 1-1.5 hs more, into the oven it goes. I went to the farmers market during the first rise, got distracted, but came back after 2 hs. The dough had already apparently risen and collapsed. I decided to go ahead, shape it and bake it. Result: pancake city!  Flattish looking ball, very very tight crumb (the book mentions very airy crumb, which was what I was hoping for)

I was disappointed, but decided that the best approach would be to make it again right away, being careful about all the timing, catching the dough before it collapsed. Made another biga yesterday, a second batch of dough today. Result: PANCAKE CITY.  Much worse than yesterday, it is pretty much like a frisbee. Crumb not as tight, but... pathetic anyway.

Has anyone made this bread? Could there be something wrong with the recipe? I make plenty of good loaves, my oven is the correct temperature, this time I even went through the trouble of heating the thing for a long time as called for in the recipe.... my yeast is very active, I used filtered water, the biga and the dough both behaved more or less as described in his book.

any advice is more than welcome.... or a baker's shoulder to cry on    :-)