Ok, so I worked out my issues with my starter and my first loaf turned out sort of ok. Here's the story.
I had my starter going for 8 days before I attempted a loaf and I'm pretty happy with my progress. Sure, I've got plenty of practice ahead of me, but to make something that is edible on my first go feels like an accomplishment.
So, my starter commenced life as 1 cup white wheat flour with 1 cup of water.
On about day 6 I was getting a bit impatient as not a great deal was happening. There were a few bubbles, but not the froth and awe that I had read about on the forums
So, I added some rye flour (30%) to my next feed and that really set things off. I am now trying to get it back to an all wheat starter so am gradually decreasing the rye with each feed.
So, my first loaf. I was running out of white flour and had to use a bit of the rye in it 50gr to 450gr white. I was sort of hoping that would help it rise too, just in case my starter wasn't quite ready.
I followed the instructions laid out by Dom in this post
/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=46&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
When it came time to unwrap the first loaf a little stuck to the tea towel, and my knife wasn't sharp enough to slash the dough, it just marked it so I was a bit worried as it went in the oven as it was a bit mangled. It didn't really rise too much in the first 5 mins of baking, so I was glad the second loaf could prove for a bit longer.
End result: burnt!! Only a bit though. I had decided to give it a few more minutes and then went to hang the washing on the line. Ooops, I left it a bit too long, but it still tastes good!
[img]http://lamammina.typepad.com/la_mammina/images/2007/12/02/img023.jpg[/img]
After another hour of proving I went to bake the second loaf, but it stuck to the tea towel so badly that I couldn't even get it off! Very disappointed.
I have two more loaves form a different starter wrapped in tea towels ready to be baked in a few hours. I wrapped these ones before I experienced the towel sticking on the first two so I'm pretty sure I didn't put enough flour (rye) on them so these ones are going to stick too. Damn it!
Any suggestions as to how to unstick them if this should occur?
Thanks for reading!
Allison
Replies
Gently peel it off using a sharp knife to scrape it off? No matter how bad it looks drop it in the oven anyway and see what happens. I've put some pretty mangled loaves in and been surprised by how well they turn out - they certainly tasted ok, even if they looked a bit strange.
Keep it up!
Matthew
Thanks Matthew.
Turns out I didn't need to scrape after all, the next loaf that I tried didn't stick at all. It was an all white wheat and it turned out great inside too. But, yet again it burned on the outside. Obviously I need to do a bit of tweaking with the temperature.
I was going on and on about the merits of making our own bread and how cheap it would be when my husband responded, "yeah, but I'm sure you'll get pretty sick of sourdough, all that chewing etc" Obviously, I quite like all that chewing, but I can sort of understand what he means, especially as I have children who might sometimes want something softer.
Is there a recipe for some sort of a sourdough sandwich loaf?
Try searching the recipe forum, I'm pretty sure that there have been some posted.
Matthew