Initial Attempts in France

I played around with my sourdough starter for 4 years in Dubai. I actually made some pretty good bread but they were always unformed and a bit unfocused. They tasted amazing toasted but the results were random to say the least. I didn't follow recipes. I just had at it.

I made successful hot cross buns and pinwheel scones and pizza doughs just by using my starter and adhoc recipes out of my head. I made many many breads that mainly ended out quite flat but with reasonable holes. The bread all had the sourdough characteristics of a bouncy shiny crumb and lovely chewy crunchy crust so that was OK by me as it toasted up so well. BUT I wasn't happy because I really REALLY wanted to make the sourdough bread I'd come to know and love from my days of living in New Zealand. Namely

Wild Wheat sourdough bread which they used in my favourite cafe Dizengoff

So we moved to France and it is winter. I decided to FINALLY actually do some serious study, follow some recipes and see where I ended out.

This one below was following Alex The French Guy and his sourdough for non bakers recipe. You'll see from the photos it has a funny top in the proving basket but that ends out to be the bottom so no problem there. It rose fine, it looked OK, it baked up well but it didn't have the proper HOLES!!

In the proving basket just before baking

Ready for the oven

Baking

Final result of Alex the French Guy second attempt

So I decided to try again. And this time I adjusted my flour types a little as I thought it was due to my ash content ratio (more on that later). I followed his advice of mixing half and half T55 (high grade strong bread flour to you unless you have access to French flour) and T110 (naturally stone ground rye flour).

BUT I also decided to make it in a day instead of proving it overnight in the fridge as it was looking so good. Mistake.

The starter was lovely and bubbly as you'll see from the photo below.

The bread was nice and strong and able to be formed into a good round with a nice taut skin as you'll see from the photo below:

It rose well in the proving basket (before above, after below)

I cut it ready for the oven. All good so far. I use a pre heated non stick heavy frying pan to cook bread on because I'd used a large copper pot (in place of a dutch oven) last time and wasn't entirely happy .....

Baking away, puffing up nicely - still looking good......

BUT WHAT??? This is NOT what I am after. Where are the lovely little shiny bubbles on the crust? Where are is the lovely bouncy crumb?

I threw this loaf out.  I do not throw food out.  I was just so frustrated and frankly it's not my sort of bread.  I had oodles of sourdough in the freezer by this stage and so instead of making use of it somehow like I usually would I chucked the whole thing out. That's huge for me!

You'll see from the photos above that the crust is just a crust, not a proper sourdough crust.

You'll see from the photo above that the crumb is just a crumb, not a bouncy sourdough crumb.

Sooooo I reviewed again, thinking I'll make his recipe again using my changed flour ratios and proving it properly overnight. But having another proper look at his you tube results I decided actually this was not the recipe for me. While the Alex The French Guy recipe looks good on the outside, it doesn't have quite the crust I'm after texture wise and the crumb does not have quite as many holes and is not as open as I'm after in my quest. So I decided not to try his recipe again and to try someone's whose results looked more like what I am personally after and what I consider to be a great sourdough bread.

Alex The French Guy is a good simple recipe so a good one to start out with and the result is fine. Just not what I'm personally after.
So back to the drawing board. I found a recipe that looked like a great result and I liked her straight forward approach. This recipe is from Vita Lives Free .

Everything went super well. I followed all instruction, including baking in a dutch oven (well I used a large copper pot with lid preheated. Same thing).

The final result as you'll see below is pretty impressive.

.

Final result of Vita Lives Free sourdough recipe.

 

Anyway the result looked great from the outside but inside not perfect! WHY??? By this stage, over the course of a couple of weeks I'd been cooking sourdough bread constantly as each loaf takes at least 2 days. You'll see from the photo below the crumb is not what I'm after. Definitely not the result Vita got from her own recipe.

So I decided to try yet again........

Same recipe, different flour combinations to see if I could try and get it right.

So this loaf looked good too. Nice colour, good little bubbles. Cutting it open, it didn't have the crust I am after and did not have the HOLES!!! Geez, this was starting to get on my wick.

The bread was fine, tasted good. Just not my version of perfection. I still hadn't achieved what Vita achieved but decided I'd try another recipe to compare.