Thanks Dom!

Carol,

(sorry for the slow reply, have been offline for a few days)

Fantastic!

Your loaf looks beautiful (beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I love the 'rustic look').

[img]http://static.flickr.com/57/190360584_238b347ace.jpg[/img]

The crumb looks great - nice open texture. I wouldn't have thought that it looked overproved, but Bill has more than 20 years baking experience on me, so I am reluctant to disagree.
8am to 4pm isn't overly long for me in Melbourne. Two 3 to 4 hour prooves seems about right, but maybe I am overdoing it. If the dough hadn't risen much before baking, then usually I would reckon that you can leave it for longer, though as you have discovered, if the first rise has been long enough you will still get a great spring and nice texture if you bake sooner rather than later.

If that seems confusing, try different timings - you will get the feel for what works for you, in your oven, with your recipe, in your home.

I am very pleased that the starter has travelled safely and is clearly alive and kicking

cheers
Dom

Aha! Marvelous how your brain slows down as you age. Dom's post has jogged my memory, I just realised that the bread in the photo may be Dom's Pane Francesse, and if it is I remember a communication with Dom earlier this year where I said that I had to cut the proofing times down to 3 and 3.

Overnight.
I have also found that if you keep your starter warm, 25C-26C, it will maintain it's sour. When it is allowed to brew at cool temps it will smell acidic but not have much sour.

Carol,

use the fridge

have a look at [url=http://sourdom.sourdough.net.au]my tutorial on proving[/url] for a description of how to do this.

give it 12-24 hours after shaping.

cheers
Dom

*Picking my jaw from the floor*

You've been very successfully productive, Carol! Love the bread's spring. Hey, I haven't made choc shortbread before. LOL, my daughter and I thought it was the print of one of those enchanted folks. Was going to ask you where you got it from. Looking at it the second time, I realise it's a cake, lol!!!

Wow, homemade pasta, you're da bomb!

You're doing pretty well Carol, just think back a couple of months. The learning is an exponential curve, once you start to get the hang of it you start to progress pretty fast.

Your bread really looks great Carol. I find you can get an easy sour just by doing the extra proofing like the guys said, and adding 1/2 to 1 cup of whole wheat or rye flour. Just enough to speed up the enzyme activity.
Teresa

Carol,

If you are baking the Pane Francese recipe, here is a schedule that I used earlier this week (using the starter I sent to you), with the best results that I have had to date (in terms of flavour and crumb!)

Day 1 evening - refresh starter
Day 2 mix dough, knead.
Leave the dough on the bench overnight (this works for me in Melbourne where it is reasonably cold overnight, perhaps 10C, if it is warm overnight I would use the fridge instead)
Day 3 morning - shape the dough, put in basin/banneton to prove
Cover dough with cloth, put whole bowl in plastic bag and whack in the fridge
Day 3 evening, or day 4 morning
Take the dough out of the fridge
Turn on the oven.
About 1 hour later - bake

I know it seems like a long time from go to whoa, but it is worth it!

Dom

Carol, I'm not familiar with the speed of Dom's starter but considering the 8AM to 4PM time span, and the good appearance of the crumb, I think you may be just getting into a very slightly overproofed situation.
With overproofing the gluten starts to weaken and is unable to support the gas cell structure. In your case, as I said before, a slight overproof shows up as the weight of the loaf collapsing the slightly overproofed cells in the bottom of your loaf.
In a really overproofed loaf the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.

EDIT I've copied the photo and blown it right up, and it confirms my opinion.

Hey how come I can't see the photos?

Jeremy

[quote="Jeremy"]
Hey how come I can't see the photos?Jeremy
[/quote]
What's up Mac?

Bit of [url=http://www.apple.com/getamac/]jealousy[/url] ay Bill.

[quote="Maedi"]
Bit of [url=http://www.apple.com/getamac/]jealousy[/url] ay Bill.
[/quote]
Maedi, if I was doing serious graphics or Photoshop work I'd have a Mac, but for everything else I'll have a PC thanks.

Carol, among the many things that I have learned is the fact that I'm still learning.
Each starter has its own personality, that is, it will differ in action from any other starter. It will act differently for you than it does for Dom, due to variations in flour, temperature etc. It will even vary from recipe to recipe, its a matter of learning it.
That said, one of the golden rules of baking is that it is better to bake a little underproofed than overproofed. The old yeast rule of thumb of letting the dough double in size before baking will most often result in an overproofed loaf.
As I have said before somewhere, learning when a loaf is proofed and ready to bake is possibly the hardest thing any baker has to learn.
As an example, I am rather pedantic with my baking, yet I can mix the same recipe at the same time time of day and temperature, proof in a temperature controlled box, shape and into the fridge at the same time, out of the fridge at the same time, and still have to vary the time before baking by up to an hour.
It keeps baking interesting, instead of it being just a mechanical process one does by rote.

That bread looks so tasty Carol!
Glad to hear you have a starter again after your disaster.

Hullo??? You're in the wrong forum, Carol. This doesn't qualify for Beginners. Great crumb!