Today I tried the Genzano Country Bread recipe from Daniel Leaders's new book "Local Breads"

Even though he talked about how very wet this dough was, nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. (See attached pictures below)

Following the recipe, I kneaded the dough for about 25 minutes in a standing mixer, let it ferment for the appropriate time, poured it onto the counter and shaped into loaves. The dough was so wet I actually ended up have to use Bertinet's dough slapping method to shape it into anything resembling a boule.

Any ideas what went wrong??

(sorry these photos are sideways!)

I baked this very large, rustic Italian loaf (pagnotta) a couple weeks ago from Daniel Leader’s wonderful new book, Local Breads, page 197.  He states that it is to bake until almost black or charred for the most authentic loaf.  I didn’t go quite that far but you can see it developed a lot of color which I always prefer in my loaves.