Bread Number 100: Adapted River Cottage Sourdough

Self-awareness is a good quality and never more so than when realizing that a professional male baker's hands doing 10 minutes of kneading is not the equivalent of 10 minutes of kneading by a woman who needs a device or a strong man to open every jar. I have various tricks when it comes to opening jars, but my hands are never enough.

My failure to either almost never adequately knead or to have the patience to adequately knead is why I love stretch and folds, which offer great results without the time, effort, and anxiety of kneading.

Significant Adaptations

The first time I made the River Cottage Bread Handbook Sourdough Bread, I kneaded and the resulting bread prompted my husband to say that it was the worst bread in a long time; damning statement that it was decidedly mediocre. [Read bread book reviews. The River Cottage Bread Book is listed under Advanced to Way Beyond Me.] On the second try, I did stretch and folds; the bread was much better than the first, but still way far off from the favorites.

When I switched to stretch and folds instead of kneading, I also decided to get rid of the guidance to do a once-an-hour degas to the dough.

Pretty Straightforward Ingredients and Instructions 

Sponge

120g starter
272g water
250g bread flour

Mix, cover, and let sit overnight and beyond for 14 hours in a cool, but not cold, kitchen.

Dough

300g turkey red whole wheat flour, which is almost white
12g salt

Mix and cover.

Four stretch and folds, each 15 minutes apart. Could easily do stretch and folds up to 30 minutes apart.

Let rise for five and two-thirds hours.

Prep and Baking

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

I shaped the dough into an oblong shape. Cover for one hour while the oven heats. I also preheated the top of an obling la cloche on a baking stone, but one can easily use loaf pans instead for similar results with a slightly different shape.

Baking

• 10 minutes at 500 degrees.
• Instructions say to decrease according to color of the dough at 10 minutes. Mine was still pale, so I only decreased the oven temperature to 400 degrees. I baked for another 26 minutes and it could have been a couple less.

And ...

Good bread with a nice oven spring. Nice taste, but nothing amazing. Can do an easier recipe with results that are as good or better.

The bread appears white even though I used about 50 percent whole wheat, probably because the fine turkey red flour is incredibly whitish despite being whole grain.

Intimate Look at the Stretch and Fold

Not a yoga position
On the advice of my writer pals, I am going to be taking an in-depth look at a few important aspects of dough development. The stretch and fold is a prime example. Though it sounds like a yoga position somewhere between downward facing dog and child's pose, it is not. Like its sister method of kneading, the stretch and fold is a type of dough manipulation that aerates and strengthens the dough. In other words, the end result should be a better bread for taking the time, actually very little time, to do this.

Actually, I had no idea I would have this much to say about a simple, easy procedure.

What is a stretch and fold exactly?  
There are two ways to do a stretch and fold; both, big surprise, involve stretching and folding. One method is to hold up the dough in one's hands and the other is to lay it out on a board or on the counter. For simplicity's sake, I will explain the board method first. 

Before doing anything with the dough, depending on whether the dough is very wet or not, put water, for wet dough, or sprinkle flour, otherwise, on a large cutting board or kitchen counter. Then put water or flour all over your hands. The last thing you want is to get dough all over the work surface or your hands, so be generous with the water or flour.

How do you know if the dough is wet? Does it stick all over your hands in a gloopy mess or promise to do so when you touch it with one finger? That is wet dough.

Gentle, very gentle
Remind yourself to be gentle with the dough so that you do not rip it or, at least, greatly minimize ripping. The point is to stretch, but not break, the gluten strands. Lay out the dough and gently flatten it into a rectangle or somewhat rectangular shape. Stretch out each long end as far as it will go, again, without breakage.

After this initial stretch, fold those elongated ends as if making an envelope. First, fold one end to the midpoint and then the other end over the first. Now, turn the dough 90 degrees and stretch out the other two sides of dough. Fold in again the same way.

In the air, using hands
The air method is much the same, except without putting the dough down. This is easier than it sounds. Stretch and fold the same way described above.

What kind of doughs?
I do stretch and folds for most wheat-based breads and spelt. Do not stretch and fold after initial mixing for rye breads, even those that are only 30 percent rye. Rye is fragile.

When?
Stretch and folds can be done after the initial mixing of the dough and, at a later phase of dough development, before shaping the dough. I do not do a stretch and fold at this point for spelt doughs or ones with any rye flour.

For most doughs that are majority wheat flours, whether white bread flour, all purpose, or whole wheat, I stretch and fold in the hour and a half after mixing the dough, between two to four stretch and folds, usually three or four. 

I also often do a pre-shape stretch and fold with all doughs. For any dough with up to 30 percent rye or for a 100 percent spelt bread, I only do the pre-shaping stretch and fold. My rye advice is to be taken lightly because I have not gone beyond 30 percent rye at this point.

Post-mixing stretch and fold
I mix the dough, cover, and let rest for at least 15 minutes. All stretching and folding should be done within the first two hours after mixing, but definitely the first one by 45 minutes in. I always wait at least 15 minutes between each stretch and fold, or almost 15 minutes if some craziness or rushing is necessary for non-bread-related reasons.

Notice when doing a few stretch and folds that the dough strengthens and will not stretch as far as it had at first. After these stretch and folds is the bulk fermentation period, otherwise known as the first rise.

Pre-shaping stretch and fold
I generally also do a stretch and fold prior to shaping the dough, in which case, I let the dough sit, covered, for 15 minutes after the stretch and fold to allow the dough to relax prior to shaping. I generally do this stretch and fold on a board.

Relationship to kneading
I am not a kneading expert, but I have read quite a bit and watched what seems like hundreds of kneading videos. In terms of numbers, after porn, I think there are cat videos and then kneading videos. The kneading ones are mesmerizing, especially if you can find the one of the French guy who kneads as part of a demonstration. He's up to elbows in a huge basin of dough. Wonderful. (If you are looking for a cute pet video, there's a wonderful one of a guy on a cargo bike with his two little dogs enjoying the ride to the dog park, all accompanied by lovely and lively French music.)

From the little I have gathered, stretching and folding is as effective as kneading and a whole lot less work. I find, as well, that there is much less anxiety. Somehow, as I'm leaning into the dough, pressing hard, pulling it, and doing this over and over for 10 to 15 minutes, I am consumed by the doubt that I am kneading correctly, whereas the stretch and fold is so simple an act that my confidence is let unharmed, or, at least, in its usual, below average state.

Other perspectives 
If you would like to see a stretch and fold in action, here's a video from NW Sourdough that's short, sweet, and gives slightly different instructions for this technique than I have. I also have learned quite a bit from Breadtopia. His bread making videos are wonderful, and he does demonstrate a stretch and fold when he uses the technique in some of his start-to-finish films. You just have to find the stretch and fold a midst the eight-or-more minute videos.

Bread - Numbers 43 and 44: How not to make a challah

Bread - Numbers 43 and 44: A recipe is someone else's instruction of what presumably works and something I have a hard time following
I tried this recipe twice, two different ways and two failed attempts at a sourdough challah. Even bread book authors who promote using a natural culture almost universally recommend commercial yeast in a challah dough. I tried making a sponge and an autolyse. I tried hours of rising. The first time, the braids were perfect, but the density was more hockey puck than bread. The second try, it was a good bread, but not a challah as it did not even keep the braids when it baked in the oven.

So, first the hockey puck and then the challah attempt that my husband likened to a dinner roll at a mediocre restaurant. I did not take pictures of the hockey puck. I was too depressed. I will summarize these attempts quickly as these are not meant to be recipes, but rather lessons or perhaps comic interludes.

From outside the Jewish bakery
I like the book Inside the Jewish Bakery and I am drawn to the time and place and bakery smells that it evokes, the mid century of New York City's Jewish neighborhoods and the bakery of my childhood, the bakery near the Met Food and the Lincoln Gardens Cleaners, down the block from Goody's Candy Store, a block and a half from home and less than a block from my elementary school, P.S. 209. (I grew up thinking it was the height of luxury to have a school with a name instead of a number.) This was a 10 minute walk from the best place in Brooklyn for a knish, Mrs. Stahls, the used bookstore that had every book one ever requested, though it was hardly bigger than a walk-in closet, and the ocean, the vast open space with its breezes and connection to faraway places.

I took the recipe for the bakery challah from Inside the Jewish Bakery and I changed it completely. Whatever bakery I was trying to evoke, I got something more Woody Allen making lobster than a professional baker preparing challah for the Sabbath. I can hear the comments in my head of all those teachers who told my mother I was bright, but I didn't listen.

Hockey puck
In separate bowls, I mixed the wet and dry ingredients, the usual for challah of bread flour, water, oil, salt, sugar and eggs. I used sourdough starter instead of commercial yeast. I kneaded for 15 minutes. I let the dough rise for an hour and a half; it barely rose. I kneaded for one minute and let the dough relax for a half hour. The braiding went fine. I did not like using a whole egg for the egg wash, as recommended. [Photo of a dough that barely rose.]

The dough looked pretty, but in the oven it did not rise one bit. It was a dense bread that looked - and felt- like a fake piece of food in a store window. At about 45 minutes, whereas I usually bake for no more than 35, I admitted defeat. One bit was enough. Not even edible. [Photo below shows normal looking strands waiting to be braided. Not very well shaped strands. Will have to take photos of nicer ones in future.]

Ingredients were ...
395g bread flour
45g sugar
7g salt
60g starter
69g egg yolks
23g olive oil
170g water
egg mixed for glazing
sesame seeds

The blame for the demise? Was there one critical mistake? I am going with inadequate kneading, but the rising time might have been way too long, giving a kick in the stomach to a bread that was already almost knocked out. Weird metaphor there.

Fluffy bread, but no challah
For the next round, adamant about making a sourdough challah and convinced that making the bread in three stages would yield better results, I made a sponge and an autolyse. An autolyse would mean less kneading.

Sponge
140g water
75g starter
160g bread flour

I let the sponge sit overnight in such a cold kitchen that the sponge might as well have sat in the refrigerator. However, with the heat on, by mid-day the sponge was nice and bubbly. The signs were much better this time around, I thought.

Autolyse
247g bread flour
54g water
56g egg yolks
59g one egg

I added extra egg because the moisture seemed lacking. The egg and the flour made for lumps of yellowish dough, which took more than a half hour at the dough stage to completely integrate. I let the autolyse sit with its uneven yellow and white mixture, for 20 minutes.

Dough
I added the sponge to the autolyse and:
7g salt
23g olive oil
120g bread flour approximately added during kneading
1 egg yolk for an egg wash (before placing dough in oven) (I neglected this part, but I usually do this for the nice finished look.)

The dough was too sticky and I added small amounts of flour while mixing and then kneading. The mixing concentrated on getting rid of the yellow lumps and creating a cohesive dough. My friend Brad was there to laugh with me and to add the flour. He taught me a different way to knead, which was more digging in and folding over than anything I had seen in the many kneading videos I had watched. Brad folded, dug in his heel, and repeated - many times. I took over and realized the small hands require more time for kneading.

I let the dough rise for three hours. It expanded, but I'm not sure it doubled. When it started to look a bit flat, I knew it was time to act or lose a second challah.

Dividing and braiding
I divided the dough into enough pieces for a challah and a roll, with three braids for each, tiny ones for the roll. I followed the advice to let the balls of dough, one for each braid, sit for 30 minutes. I braided and let sit for another 30. In my opinion, that final proof was a mistake; I should have braided, done the egg wash and put this baby in the oven. By the time it went into the oven, it seemed like the strands were mushing into one another. That's no insult to the book as I did not exactly faithfully follow any recipe in either method or ingredients.

Never let your friend peek in the oven

I hold fast to certain superstitions and one of them is not to peek into the oven unless a bread needs some assistance, such as removal of parchment paper or a cover during baking. My friend follows different rituals. Brad looked and he nagged me right into the kitchen. Oh so sad! In the oven, at 325 degrees, the bread rose. It looked like a fluffy Italian bread. The only evidence of the braiding was a zig zag line down the middle, which eventually opened a bit, almost like a cute artisanal signature that was more Walmart goes natural than authentic challah.

The bread tasted fine, nothing special. It had the texture of a fluffy roll. All we were missing were small plastic serving containers of butter for that Applebee's or Denny's-type experience.  

The energy of my family is pushing me away from making a challah any way other than the way I have always made it. Where I feel I might end up with this journey within a journey of a challah series is another way to make the challah I have always made, except to learn to make it without the bread machine.

But wait ... The next bread, a whole wheat challah, which I just tasted, came out marvelous. That will be bread #45. I can almost smell the ocean from near the old bakery at Coney Island Ave. between Y and Z, just up the block from Goody's. 

Still hoping for a good sourdough challah.

Breads - Numbers 36 and 37: Two Mediocre WW Breads and a Pre-Occupied Baker

Recipes to follow

In baking, I find a little of the best of my mother, who never baked, but made the best brisket, the best chopped liver, and the best gefilte fish. Plus, she loved my challah. One beautiful memory in the months before she passed away without any warning was the time she spent making gefilte fish with me one morning. I wrote down every tip from her years of experience. She patiently explained, somewhat haphazardly (because we both expected a few more such sessions), the mixing and shaping and boiling that resembles the first scene from Macbeth.  Every Chanukah I think back as I make latkes about how she assisted me in the operation of shredding onions and potatoes, adding matzo meal, frying, and dealing with so much oil and grease. She totally let me be in charge even though it was her recipe and her grandchildren and her son in law who would be eating. She always let me shine.

My mom did not press me to succeed in all things at all times - outside of school.  Baking, which I started doing in high school and dabbled in sporadically thereafter, certainly fell into the "it's nice if you do this" category, along with my artwork. She liked what she called my artistic sensibility. [Note: The photo of "Betty and Irwin," the kettle couple, by my front steps.]

And now for the breads

Maybe it's arrogance, or being generally unmindful of authority, or just being busy, but I so much altered the recipes in the two recipes that my results are not any statement on the quality of those recipes. These are whole wheat breads that are from recipes in the Art of Baking with Natural Yeast, #36 being a bit less than half whole wheat and #37 being 100 percent whole wheat. Violating my sort-of rule that any alteration in the ingredients or process constitutes a new bread, I changed some ingredient or some part of the process in each attempt. Maybe that's my way of slowing down - the reason in another post.

Quickly, the recipes are:

Bread #36

Ingredients
309g water
150g whole wheat flour
324g white bread flour
8g starter
8g salt

Hydration is about 65 percent.

Quick instructions
I used autolyse phase of 20 minutes, mixing only the flour and water together. This is supposed to develop the gluten and reduce the kneading time. Then I added the starter and the salt. For want of a long overnight rise, I used much less starter than recommended. In a rush, I skipped the kneading and did three stretch and folds in a class completely having nothing to do with baking. II took the dough with me in the car and into the class. I just did not want to throw away the already mixed dough. I let rise for almost 11 hours. After shaping, the final rise was for a whole day in the fridge.

All of the recipes in this book recommend rather low temperatures. I baked at 375 degrees for 43 minutes. I used my la cloche. There was nice oven spring. Both times I made this bread it tasted good. Just nothing inspiring.

Bread #37

Ingredients
323g water
388g whole wheat flour
27g starter
8g walt

Hydration is about 84 percent.

Quick instructions
Again, I did an autolyse for 20 minutes of just the flour and water. After 20 minutes, I added the starter and the salt. I kneaded for five minutes and let the dough rest for 10; then repeated. I let it rise for seven and a half hours, did a stretch and fold, and placed the dough in a well-greased loaf pan. I let the dough rest for a final rise of two and a quarter hours.

I baked in the la cloche for 18 minutes at 405 degrees and for another 10 minutes at 375 degrees (the actual recommended temperature). There was decent oven spring. As the photos show, this bread never quite blossomed. Some wholes are good, but these were cavernous.

At least the bread did not taste like a hockey puck. It was actually good, but not anything to write home about.

It's me, not the recipe
I do not prefer an "it takes all day" recipe. I am sure it must be lovely to be home all day and I am somewhat jealous of those who work at home and who, therefore, can bake breads of various rising times. Okay, very jealous. Okay, even on those days when I am at home, I do not necessarily want to be shackled to the dough. Maybe I am jealous that there are people who not only stay at home, but are also disciplined as much about bread as about work.

Two hours, all day or overnight - that's what I ask for in a rising time. Anything else is somewhat resented, unless it results in an incredible bread, in which case all is forgiven.

Breads - Numbers 31 and 32: Back to School with 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

Finally, kneading the dough for bread #32, I felt like a baker. My hands were covered in sticky dough; the counter was pasty with it; the scraper was being used frequently to gather stray bits; and the texture of the dough felt magical. With a 20 to 30-minute autolyse, the strands of gluten were nicely developed by the time kneading began and a surprising rendezvous had begun.

Yes, I feel that I strayed from the purist position of flour, water, yeast and salt that I prefer. But there was some familial demand for an easily slice-able sandwich bread. Due to low expectations, I only took pictures after baking. [The photographs of the dough development were taken when I made this bread again.]

With slight, but significant variations, both breads used the Grammy sandwich bread recipe from the Art of Baking with Natural Yeast.  The recipe calls for coconut oil and optional honey, which I left out of bread #31 and added to the dough for bread #32. I  changed the timing for the recipe as my very warm, DC-area summer kitchen completely changes the equation for rising duration coming from recipes that imagine 65 or 70-degree temperatures. 

Spoiler alert: Bread #31 was less than mediocre, while bread #32 was sublime. At the end of this post is a mention of the controversy over coconut oil.

Ingredients and instructions

Autolyse
10 oz. water
12.65 oz. whole wheat or white whole wheat flour (used the latter in bread #32)

Mix, cover, and let rest for 20 minutes. [Photo: At the end of the 20-minute autolyse.]

Dough
Add to autolyse:
1 tbsp coconut oil
1/8 cup = 1 1/2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp starter for bread #31 - 3.5 oz. starter for bread #32 (will explain briefly later)
1 tsp salt

Just put ingredients in order on top of autolyse, except for the salt. I put the salt in last, only after partially mixing, so that the dough would get a little more time before the salt affected the yeast development. 

Mixing and kneading
Leave about 10 minutes for mixing by hand as the autolyse takes more strength to mix than a regular dough. Cover the dough and let rest for 10 minutes before kneading. This was added to bread #32 after reading a different book, which will likely be discussed at another time. It is Wild Sourdough. [Photo taken just after the dough is kneaded.]

The dough is gloppy, gloopy and feels a little oily as well from the coconut oil. Knead for 10 minutes or until the windowpane test is satisfied. Wet your hands and the counter a bit. For hand kneading, the dough scraper will be necessary. Be prepared for a mess.

Rising
Due to timing demands so that I would get the bread baked within one day of beginning, I greatly upped the starter content for the second try of this bread. The original recipe calls for 1/4 cup. I tried for an overnight rise the first time with 1 tablespoon of starter and an afternoon bread baking for the second attempt with 3.5 ounces (about 100 grams). 

Bread #31
1 tablespoon of starter - 10.25 hours of rising. The overnight rising does not work so well during the summer, when the 15 to 20-degree (Farenheit) difference in temperature dramatically decreases the rising time. Even with using just a fraction of the recommended amount of starter culture, I find I should decrease the starter amount further to get a 10 to 12-hour first rise.

Bread #32
3.5 ounces (about 100 grams) - 3.5 hours of rising, which was perfect

At two hours, just a few bubbles. [Photo to the left on top was taken at two hours. Bubbles must be looked for.]

At three hours, the dough had doubled in volume, though the bubbles were not as apparent as they had been at two and a half hours. [Photo to the left on bottom was taken at three hours. There are more bubbles, with some large and almost bursting.]

At three and a half hours, I was getting anxious about over-rising.

Shaping
I will skip bread #31 on this and head straight to bread #32. I only did a shaping taking the corners and folding in. Then I did a few swift rounding motions on the counter. I sprayed a loaf pan with non-stick baking spray and put the dough in the pan to rise, covered with plastic.

Recommended rising time was two to two and a half hours, with the suggestion that the dough is sufficiently risen when a poke does not immediately bounce back. Both times, mine seemed ready at two hours. For bread #32, the dough rose remarkably in the loaf pan - coming completely in contact with the plastic at two hours without room for further expansion. Poking was impossible with the dough sticking to my finger. Expectations were low.

Baking
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Baked bread #32 for 28 minutes. I put the loaf pan on the baking stone. For bread #32, at 25 minutes, the crust still seemed a little light. Three more minutes did the trick. Ten to 15 minutes later, the bread easily same out of the loaf pan. I then let it sit on a rack overnight.

I was not expecting anything from the sticky mass of the dough for bread #32.

(No need to go into details about bread #31, which I baked for 40 minutes and did not go over well with anyone.)

Taste
Bread #32 is a winner with great taste. I expected a wet blob and instead got a wonderful oven spring, great rising, a bread that slices easily and is in the right shape for sandwiches. There is a very slight sweetness and the texture is moist, but not wet.

Coconut oil
The Art of Baking with Natural Yeast claims that coconut oil is very healthy. A brief Internet search finds more complexity. WebMD's page on coconut oil states that there is a lack of data and takes the cautious approach of advising sparing use of this non-saturated, but fat-filled oil. However, there are numerous sites that appear in a Google search that extol the health benefits of coconut oil, with many subsidized through advertising. One representative link discusses benefits for heart, skin and cancer prevention. Supposedly, coconut oil is a favorite with vegans and is used in many healthy population groups. I have performed no independent data collection on this topic.

Bread - Number 28: Summer Heat Calls for Timing and Other Adjustments

Bread - Number 28: Knowing when to stop

Knowing when to stop is critical, not only for lawyers doing cross examination, but in life and bread making. I am not good at this. I continue on long past when the work is complete - with giving my daughters some message, with my crappy art work, and with cooking vegetables. Dough has no flexibility for overdoing. With dough, there is a moment of no return; but no light flashes on to announce when that moment has arrived. So it's guesswork - sometimes educated, sometimes not. Forgiveness for oneself must be learned, fermented, as it were, because for the casual amateur baker, mistakes will happen, attempts at something or other will not turn out well, and one has to be willing to be patient with one's imperfections.

I have to learn to adjust my recipes for an 80-to-90 degree kitchen. The sponges and dough seem to rise literally twice as fast as in a winter or spring kitchen and I should be employing only half as much starter. This, of course, has yet to happen. Instead, the alarm of a sense in the middle of the night that a sponge or dough has risen sufficiently - and is on the verge of an over rise - wakes me up, sending me to the kitchen.

Later ...
As it turned out, one white bread is merely one bread and does not begin to pierce the surface of possibilities. This particular white bread, speckled with bran flakes, is adjusted from Laura Chattman's book, Breadmaking: Crafting the Perfect Loaf from Crust to Crumb. I have yet to finish the book, but I will say that Chattman gives simple, comprehensible explanations and goes into depth on types of preferments, starters, and breads. She starts with basic, commercial yeast, mix-the-dough recipes and proceeds pretty far down the road. The book, however, goes far afield with flat breads and breads from several countries. I am not a big fan of the "everything bread in one book approach," but I like her accessible attitude.

This bread was made in between two crumb cakes, which my family calls my signature recipe. (They are brutally honest and do not request my pies.) So, with the distraction of the Fourth of July, family in town, and other baking, I made this bread twice. The first time, the bottom came out burned - due to an error in oven temperature - but with a good taste.

Please note that my recipe is two thirds of the original, which is almost a giant bread (or, in fancy terms, a miche.)

Instructions 

Sponge
1.5 oz. starter
1.6 oz. water
2.4 oz. bread flour
.2 oz. rye flour

Hot kitchen: Disaster averted via refeed of sponge
This sponge is supposed to take from eight to 12 hours to fully rise. In a very warm kitchen, the timing was five and a half hours. I should have added half of the starter and I might do this on a third try. To avert disaster on the first attempt at this bread, after allowing the sponge to sit overnight for eight hours, I just added a small - proportioned - feeding, with time for the new sponge to rise. Remembering that a sponge is merely a fed starter, I took the "feeding" amount out of the later dough ingredients. This worked perfectly. [Photo of autolyse before mixing in sponge and dough ingredients.]

Dough
9 oz. water
15.6 oz. bread flour
.7 oz. wheat bran
1 tsp. salt

Autolyse and kneading
Confession that I forgot this step the first time around. The second time, I followed the recipe for a 20-minute autolyse phase, which means mixing the dough ingredients of water and flour together and leaving it alone - sans starter and before adding salt. I don't think it matters whether the wheat bran goes into the autolyse or whether it is added right after. The claim of autolyse adherents is that gluten strands are formed and less kneading is required. My sense of a good knead and what a dough's texture should be is not sufficiently developed for me to trust my thoughts on this.

After 20 minutes, mix together the autolyse and the sponge. Add salt and mix together well. Though the instructions called for 15 minutes of hand kneading and 12, if I recall, if using a machine, I kneaded for 20 minutes. I have small hands and they are not strong. [Photo of sponge on left and autolyse on right.]


Rising on and on
This bread recipe calls for four to five hours of rising, with human intervention every hour or so. I have yet to get this part right. For me, this requires diligent use of a kitchen timer and being in said kitchen.

• 1 hour rise in kitchen bowl sprayed with baking or other non-stick spray (for the second try, I used a well-floured bowl and a good spatula). Cover with plastic.
• Turn the dough by picking it up and plopping it down on one of its sides.
• 1 to 1 1/2 hours rise again in same bowl.
• Shape and let rise in a basket or bowl for two to three hours. Cover the dough with a kitchen towel or plastic. This is where I screwed up the second time and mine slightly overrose. I shaped it again, per Chattman's advice on this topic, and it rose pretty well. (This is part of the reason I refuse to draw conclusions yet about autolyse and kneading. Mine is far from a controlled experiment.)

Baking
Preheat oven to 500 degrees and reduce to 475 when placing dough in the oven - on a baking peel.  I used parchment paper. For this size bread, I recommend about 42 minutes. Mine could have used a few more than the 39 minutes I tried.

The bread crackled nicely both times when it was taken out of the oven. The taste is good, though very white, which in our house is a weird experience. The bread is pretty. Did not get a huge oven spring, though I was impressed both times. Might make something like this in a no-knead version to compare.

[Note: If I make this bread a third time, this post will be significantly edited to reflect that.]