Today's efforts...
Today's baking was one basic sourdough batard and a yeasted mostly white sandwich/toast loaf. Very pleased with the white yeasted loaf, not overly thrilled about the batard, only because my starter's sourness has dropped off of late (will have to work on that) and the crumb was fairly tight, which was unexpected. I attribute it to the hydration being too low. Nonetheless, a nice tasty loaf (and a more delicate sour taste seems to be more to the family's liking, I am the only one apparently, who likes it good and sour). The white loaf is excellent, very fluffy and light, and I managed to sneak half a cup of fresh ground whole wheat into it. Looking forward to tomorrow's loaf (rising in the kitchen now), it is a Green olive, rosemary and thyme sourdough.
Sourdough
bakinbuff
Comments
I thought I had better come and vist your blog page as you were so kind to comment on my malt loaves! What lovely bread you make, lucky family! I was very interested to read about putting the roasting tin over the bread, I've never tried that, and it sounds like it might be easier than wrestling some big heavy hot pot in and out of the oven. I'm curious to try it as I usually use steam for the first ten minutes and then crack the door open, and let it out and take out the steam tray if it still has water in it. It works well enough but a better crust would be even better of course!
How deep a roasting tin do you need?
The roasting tin I use (I use the pan itself not the lid, the lid wouldn't be tall enough) is a long oval one, like you would use for a good size turkey. I would estimate that it is about 5 or 6 inches deep. I bake on a stone, and cover with the pan (the stone and pan are preheated). The advantage of the pan over glass or stainless steel bowls which I had been using is that the roasting tin has handles on the ends which make picking it up with oven gloves much easier and safer than a bowl with no handles. I get really nice crusts with it, much better than I could ever get with steam, although in fairness a glass bowl is probably the most efficient at keeping ALL the moisture in, but the roasting tin does a good job nonetheless. Thank you for your kind words! I feel that I have learned a whole heck of a lot in 5 months of sourdough baking...