diagnosis needed for my sourdough challah please!
Dear fellow bakers, I've wanted to try a sourdough challah recipe for some time and finally got around to doing that, using Maggie Glezer's recipe very helpfully posted here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/4200/sourdough-challah-photos-recipe [1]
Everything seemed fine along the way, and the bread tastes like it should, but the crust of the final loaf cracked all the way along one side, as illustrated in the picture. Was this due to poor shaping on my part or something else? I've made challah for years, but only with instant yeast and never sourdough, and I don't recall ever having this problem before. Thanks for your help. Always trying to improve!
Ellen
https://www.dropbox.com/s/60fg45eu1l33y59/sourdough%20challah.JPG [2]
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2137570/Bread/sourdough%20challah%2C%20cracked%20crust.JPG [3]