These?

They did come out pretty. There isn't anything special about them though... the only thing that was different than my normal sourdough was that I kept the hydration a little lower, so they ended up keeping their shape a bit better than normal.

Are you already a sourdough baker? If not, you need to get a starter going. SourdoLady's starter is one of the most popular on this site, but you can find many others here or in baking books.

After that, you bake 'em pretty much like a regular French bread. The only significant change is that the rises take longer. I think for these I did the following:

• Refreshed my starter around 8 in the evening
• Combined 1 lb AP flour, 9 oz water, 1 tablespoon salt, and 5-6 oz starter (mine is fairly wet) around 8 AM
• Folded the dough twice between 8 and noon
• Shaped the loaves around noon, let them rise until 4
• Scored them and baked them on a pre-heated stone with steam

Instructions on folding, baking, steam, and all of the other techniques I used making these are available in the 10 Tips for Better French Bread article.

Good luck, and welcome to the site!

Floyd:

I made this bread this week-end. Got the prettiest crumb I've ever had. Just one question...I'm assuming the recipe you gave above is for one loaf?

Trish

Floyd,

Thanks for info....those are exactly the loaves I was talking about.

I have some rye sourdough starter in the fridge, but I'm going to give the wild yeast starter a try as soon as I'm home long enough to think.

Also, thanks for the welcome.  I'm thrilled to find such a site.  I have The Baker's Aprrentice on route maybe arriving today....so I'm ready to start some baking again.

 I LOVE the site!

Ann

Floyd,

I tried this weekend and here is the result. I still have to work on getting big holes!!!

One question for you: don't you use any yeast in this recipe?