Cathy

Paraphrased from Epicurious, putting it here kind of for my own reference since they didn't put a 'printable recipe' in the article:

( recipe inside )
I swear I have been doing things other than baking. It's just that I'm putting the baking here...

I mean, maybe. In one area.

I learned from Twitter user NeolithicSheep's epic dissection of Walden that Henry David "Dave" Thoreau failed at bread.

He read all the scientific authorities on breadmaking. He attempted it himself. His first few attempts resulted in Bread Fail; therefore bread was just too hard, and he went back to making cornbread. (How did you leaven that, Dave? Did you make your own baking powder?)

N.B. it apparently did not occur to him to ask his mother, who had presumably making bread for longer than Dave had been alive, for coaching. He had read all the scientific authorities! what need had he for a woman's advice? And how could he call himself self-reliant if he was asking the woman who was bringing him sandwiches for help???

So... me. For GISH, one of the items was "collect wild yeast, use it to bake bread." The Bread Fail was epic but the crusts were pretty enough for a GISH photo. :) And then I still had a starter. (His name is Carlos, because I seeded him with the skins of a couple extremely sweet, delicious plums.) What to do, then, except hop on the sourdough train two-and-a-half years after everyone else did?

I don't have access to all the scientific authorities, but I have the Internet, which means I have access to King Arthur Flour's website, which is pretty authoritative. (I also don't have a mom handy, and even if I did she was not a bread baker. My grandma was, and I wish she'd shown me more when I was small.)

I have starter. I have flour. I have salt. I have water. King Arthur says that's all that needs to go into a loaf of sourdough bread. My ancestors have been making bread out of those things for thousands of years. I have the privilege of knowing that if I make Bread Fail my family will not starve!

I have made a lot of Bread Fail. My family assures me that Bread Fail is delicious, except for the one batch that was basically uncooked in the center.

At this point Dave would be feeding Carlos to the pigs. But Carlos is my good boy (no seriously during GISH I was showing pictures off like 'look at his good bubbles!' and 'he just moved to his big-boy jar!') and he deserves to make good bread. So I am... troubleshooting.

First likely failure point: Carlos is full and/or sleepy when he goes into the bread. He usually lives in the refrigerator; this week I took him out earlier than usual and fed him, then fed him again about 12 hours later. (King Arthur has also given me a delicious biscuit recipe for using the discards, so less flour is going into the trash.) I used filtered water instead of straight from the tap. He made good bubbles.

Second likely failure point: I am not adding enough flour. The doughs I've made have been extremely sticky. I've been adding extra flour when kneading - this time I actually, umm, followed the instructions to "add more water or flour" in the initial mixing stage. Kneading was a lot more pleasant, the dough only stuck to the lightly floured surface a little, and since I'm aiming for "still tacky" that's probably right???

Third likely failure point: I was feeding the starter in the morning, assembling the loaves in the late afternoon, and letting them proof in the fridge overnight. Last week I noticed that at the time I put them in the oven, they were still chilly and there had not been a whole lot of rising going on. I am taking the fridge out of the equation; I started the dough before I had my breakfast and they'll hopefully be going in the oven around 3 pm.

(This is probably too many changes simultaneously to actually count as "troubleshooting" but if I get Bread instead of Almost Bread it doesn't matter.)

General issue: "that's probably right???" is about the level of confidence I have in the whole process. There is a tutorial for this recipe on King Arthur's website but they notably do not have a video of the kneading process. Am I doing it too gently? too hard? too long? not long enough? I have seen bakers on Great British Baking Show do a "window-pane test" and I have never gotten a window pane but I also don't know if I'm doing the test right. I might have to ask a human to coach me a bit at some point. Fortunately I know a few humans who are experienced bakers...

but in any case I'm not giving up. I have bread dough rising. This afternoon I will either have yummy bread or hopefully-yummy Bread Fail which I will learn from and try again next week.

Take your self-reliance and suck it, Dave.