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This sourdough loaf owes its colour to activated charcoal. I discovered this bread and heaps of information on the use of charcoal on Bake-Street.com and could not resist. My dough did not look dark enough to me. I thought it resembled window putty so I added 1/2 gram extra charcoal. I still thought it was too light but resisted the temptation to add black food colouring. It turned quite dark during baking, so I need not have worried. It is a tasty loaf with a good crust and soft as a cloud inside.

I had a great success in sourdough this week, with the most impossibly light and even crumb.

My previous sourdough, and many photos I've seen of quality sourdough, have a preponderance of large irregular bubbles. This is totally unlike that.

 Well, as I wait for the oven to preheat I suppose I can post about what I was pulling from the oven at 1:30am.

Hi,

I was checking the protein content of King Arthur flours and since White WHole Wheat has 13% and bread flour 12.7% I was wondering if I could swap it in a recipe for yeasted bread?

Has anybody tried that, or has any input in pros and cons of doing it?

Thanks.

Abe and others this past week have been posting about doing a bread that can take many hours on the counter with little baker help so that you can go off to work or play and not worry about the bread.  Trailrunner also did a series on her No Touch bread which this one relies on.  Lucy wanted to make one so that she could play and sleep all day and all night.

  Tangzhong is the technique of heating a portion of the flour and liquid in your recipe to approximately 65C to make a paste (roux).  At this temperature the flour undergoes a change and gelatinizes.  By adding this roux to your final dough it will help create a soft, fluffy, moist open crumb.  It is also supposed to help prevent the bread from going stale.

After years of practice and changing steps to make the process simpler, I think I finally have the classic sourdough loaf down.

Yesterday’s bake 

Had a few experimental mishaps (couldn't generate enough surface tension to get good oven spring, etc) so I needed a win. Made this pumpernickel using the recipe on KAF's website...can't wait to crack into it (my son's already planning to make rubens tomorrow).