Unintentional Pancakes
The last two loaves of bread I baked have shared a strange problem I hadn't encountered before: they turned into pancakes after proofing. I'd love to know what I'm doing wrong.
With the first of these loaves, I tried the minimal-kneading technique described in Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf. After mixing, a 30-minute autolyse, then a few brief seconds of light kneading, another half hour, a ten-second knead, two stretch-and-folds during the bulk ferment, then shaping and proofing in a banneton. When I tipped the banneton over the peel, the bread almost oozed out. It spread into a thick pancake, and I had a hard time getting it off onto the baking stone. I tried to put a glass bowl over it to help it rise in the oven, and it wound up climbing the sides of the bowl. It wound up barely edible, with a too-soft crumb and too little flavor.
The second loaf was my first with my current wild-yeast starter. I kneaded a bit more this time. After a 30-minute autolyse, I kneaded for about three minutes, then two stretch-and-folds during bulk ferment. The dough refused to rise, though. After about eight hours, I tossed it in the fridge. The weird thing was that it rose somewhat overnight. Arctic yeast? Then this morning I took it out of the fridge, coaxed a tiny bit more rise out of it, shaped it, and proofed it in a banneton. When I went to bake it, I noticed that the dough was very sticky, and a tad... gooey. It adhered to the banneton in spite of the flour inside. When I finally got it out of the banneton, it spread out into an even broader, thinner pancake than the previous loaf. It did rise somewhat in the oven, but not that much. It tastes OK, but isn't very sour.
Loaf #1 was Reinhart's French bread recipe from The Bread-Baker's Apprentice, and loaf #2 was his basic sourdough from the same volume.
Any ideas as to what I might be doing wrong?