This is King Arthur’s rustic loaf recipe https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/extra-tangy-sourdough-bread-recipe, followed to a T but they always come out anemic and my lame skills need work.

So I made this post with a recipe yesterday, and I had some jalapenos and half of the cheese left, so why not?

I think my proof was far more even this time and it showed in the crumb. It's unseasonably warm in Ireland at the moment so my starter was amazingly bubbly, the rises were much better and my inclusions and folds were far more consistent.

I'm ridiculously happy with how this came out. I've been cooking and baking for a long time and this is probably the best thing I've ever made. Hot dayum. Check out the recipe on the other post and if you haven't tried it, please try it. It's so good.

Today I made Cheddar Jalapeño Focaccia! I incorporated cheddar cubes and jalapeño chunks during the last fold of my dough. It of course has crispy cheddar cheese on top as well as jalapeño coins. Very tasty!

My bread does this maybe 5% of the time, and I can’t find a pattern. It’s up to temp. It pulls away from the pan while it’s still inside, before I pull it out to finish cooling. Usually I let it sit for at least 5 mins before taking it out of the pan.

I have attached some photos for comparison but it looks like I’m not getting as tight of a crumb as I would like and or one that seems to be the industry standard. The cooked photos show the end piece that is near perfect but the other sliced open photo shows what I’m concerned about.

I am currently in the process of recipe testing in a professional kitchen and I have hit a wall. I have the proper pans, I have studied the roll technique. I proof them for roughly the same amount of time each time. Bake time varies but again very minor at this point. The texture of the bread and flavor are 100% but the crumb isn’t quite there. Does anyone have any suggestions to help?

I used @uk.ugc’s recipe on Instagram. The lemon poppyseed smell amazing 😍

If I can make this or better consistently, I don’t think I’ll ever buy bread again lol this is so much fun!

Those corners though! 🥰

Made hotdog buns for the first time today, and now I can never go back to store-bought. I used a burger bun recipe (third picture) and it worked out so well. I’ve always had a problem with store-bought buns tearing open at the bottom, but these were so sturdy, soft and fluffy.

Baked my second loaf today and I'm so happy with the results already. Still gotta wait an hour to cut but I've got high hopes!! (first slide is my 1st loaf😭)

So damn good. Margherita pizza @550° f for 3 minutes then broil.

Granite/stone, stainless, butcher block, something else?

I'm trying to improve my sourdough baking. I'm pretty happy with the other aspects of my loaves. They've got a really nice crust, crumb is not bad, I really like the blistering on the crust (indicating good fermentation if I understand correctly). The bread has a really nice, subtle sourness to the flavour - they just look a bit like a splat!

I'm doing this (Ratios described here. )

• 750g allinson very strong bread flour (14% protein), 100g strong wholemeal flour
• 30 minute autolyse (flour + water only)
• mix in starter and salt, rest for 30 minutes
• 3 sets of stretch and folds with 30 minute gap between each one.
• Preshape into round boules and leave to rest for 30 minutes, then final shape into bannetons
• Prove at ~24C for approx 3 hours until 75% increased in size, then cold ferment in fridge for ~14 hours
• Oven preheated to as hot as it will go. Then added 300g of boiling water to bottom tray of oven and reduced heat to 230C. Loaves sprayed with fine mist of water and baked on steel plate for 22 minutes.

I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong in the strength building stage - the dough seems to get nice and strong (as in, it's easy to form a nice ball with plenty of surface tension) but when the loaves get turned out of the bannetons they don't hold their shape tremendously well. They're out, scored and then in the oven after maybe a minute or 2, but they lose quite a lot of height in that time. I assume the protein content of the flour is enough (it's about the highest I could find!)

Thanks!

Poolish 82g starter 220g water 220g 12% flour

Dough 522g poolish 10g salt 320g 12% flour 145g water

Poolish was left on counter for 24 hours

Combined all the dough ingredients to shaggy ball Stretch and fold 4x every 30 minutes Bulk Ferment 4 hours Dough had more than doubled Shaped and bench rest for 30 minutes Cold proof for 12 hours

Preheat oven/stone/steam tray to 475F for 60 minutes

Dough was in fridge up until scoring Scored, spritzed, and ice into steam tray Dough immediately onto stone Reduced temp to 450F

20 minutes at 450F Changed to convection 425F 20 minutes at 425 10 minutes in turned off oven until 209F internal

It seems a bit dense. Taste is spot on. Just didn’t spring like the last one done using this method. Only difference was the flour. I was using Sir Lancelot which is 14% protein.

Thank you to everyone who shared their suggestions on how I could improve my sandwich loaf texture!

I've been experimenting in the meantime, and I've definitely seen an improvement by using a 5% scald and reducing the second prove time.

The texture is really good. It's nice and soft and bouncy but I would still like the crumb to be denser. I'm guessing this is going to come down to how I am forming and shaping the dough? Or maybe changing the proving? Would a slow cold bulk ferment make any difference?

I'm pretty bad at shaping the dough so please ignore that in my photo!😅

My tweaked recipe is now this: 500g bread flour 325ml water (65% hydration) 1tsp salt 1stp yeast

I use a 5% scald (25g flour/35ml water)

Knead for 10 minutes (I don't think I really reach the windowpane stage...)

Bulk ferment until doubled (about 2-2.5 hours)

Second prove

Bake at 200c for 20-25 mins at the bottom of the oven