Sourdough with caramelized onion and parmesan
Intrigued by the recipe featured on the home page, I decided to try to duplicate it. For a Thanksgiving potluck, which was daring fate. Problems were: I did not have the required ingredients (no freshly ground red fife flour, no freshly ground flax seeds) nor the required equipment. No banettons or multiple dutch ovens. My oven blew a top element. Oven is old, replacement element no longer available, so it will only heat to 360 degrees.
But I made the caramelized onion (following tips in Bittman's How to Cook Everything), used KA bread flour and whole wheat flour, and baked by weight rather than volume for the first time. I must have done something wrong, because the dough came out so so wet and gloppy. I could not form it into boules. Rather than add more flour, I just put the dough into two greased cake pans.
Usually I use the Peter Reinhart levain recipe, and add the optional baking yeast. This time I decide to go all sourdough all the way, and set the bread out to rise. So slow. I ended up setting my alarm for 3 AM so I could get up and put the pans into the refrigerator for retarding.
Set the pans out to proof, late Thanksgiving morning. The dough did NOT want to rise. But potluck approached, so I heated up the oven and put in the pans.
The bread rose in the center but stuck to the cake pans at the edges. A struggle to get out the weirdly shaped loaves. I was sure that they were a failure.
But I took them to the potluck, sliced them up and ... they were a hit. Only a few slices left.
Will make again, perhaps back off on the hydration.