This loaf should have been a celebration, but instead it became a reminder of my weakness.
My first sourdough boule in my new home. Waking up early on Monday morning to bake it, and to then bring it to work to share it with my new coworkers. Celebrating a new life, and the new found freedom I had to bake to relax.
Instead, it became a reminder of a Sunday afternoon where I lost control yet again. Three bagels in 20 minutes - and that’s not a good thing, for me. Not as if I did it for a bet or to test my limits… I just, lost control. It had been a pretty good week for my eating habits, and how I’ve felt about them, but things spiraled out of control after having lunch out with a visiting friend. The funniest thing it is, bread. How much baking it and thinking about it is a joy for me, yet the eating and craving (oh the craving for a chewy crumb of a bagel) it is a struggle and a psychological drain.
Well. Despite testing my new recipe for the first time, in hopes of finding the perfect mix of whole wheat flour and bread flour while maintaining a solid open crumb (wanting a higher percentage of whole grain), the perfect resting and fermentation times (especially in the new environment that is my non-temperature regulated apartment), and the new chapter in my life that baking this loaf was meant to represent, it became something else that I just want to forget.
So, yes. Though this loaf has the requisite tang and the composition which I have always craved, its brittle exterior and soft open interior seems to justly define me as well.
Baking, eating - it’s not just about the bread or the product, but about the entire experience, and what the actions evoke.
This loaf was made with Chad Robertson’s Tartine Bread Country Loaf recipe, but with personal edits to the ratio of whole wheat flour to bread flour to be composed of more whole wheat, and a slight increase in the water to account for the water-needy whole wheat - my “Cambridge” Sourdough Loaf to mark my time in Harvard, if you will. This loaf had the greatest oven spring of any loaf I’ve ever baked - I think it’s because I changed the scoring pattern from a tictactoe / diamond to the straight cross, which permits the loaf to expand upwards more easily. The next step for me is to master getting a more defined ear from the scores.
This loaf was submitted to Yeastspotting.
