December 30, 2019 - 8:51am
What went wrong with this bread?
Hi everyone,
This was my first attempt making a bread with dry active yeast, as opposed to the regular sourdough recipes I've made successfully.
I used this recipe from KA Flour: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/rustic-sourdough-bread-recipe
Despite kneading the dough for a good 20 minutes, I couldn't seem to get my dough ball to look quite like that in the photos. It did have some bounce-back, but felt still rather dry and stiff.
I let the dough sit for about 2 hours, before covering it and letting it rise for a little over an hour.
Just wondering how to explain the tight crumb and the fact that you can still see the folds from my attempt to shape into a nicer ball.
Thanks, all!
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well.... it looks like you discovered the big difference in dough feel. A sourdough tends to soften with time but a yeasted dough doesn't change much. Your instincts were right, it's too stiff and dry. With a little higher hydration, the dough sticks to itself better when folded.
Working in or kneading with water instead of flour would have helped out nicely in this case. A little awkward and messy at first but easy to get more water into the dough and you soon learn not to get hands too wet. Sometimes just poking in lots of holes into the dough and pouring a few tablespoons of water over the loaf helps too. Especially if you let it soak into the dough for about 20 minutes.
You can also let a yeasted dough (double) rise more than a sourdough before baking. :)
That particular KA rustic sourdough recipe is my go-to bread recipe because it's fast and easy. I usually divide the recipe in half because I don't have a very large freezer! I think you might have used too much flour in your bread Your bread looks really dense. Just make sure you use a scale and measure the ingredients by weight. I use a 100% hydration starter and weigh everything down to the exact gram. I don't knead my hand - it goes into the stand mixer for about 7-8 minutes.
Thanks for the advice. I tried a similar recipe and remembered not to add any flour after the first rise. The result was much better than my first attempt!
:)