Bread

No real tips needed - it works well with wettish doughs, giving amazing crusts. Just preheat in the oven as high as it will go, then take out and tip in the dough, replace lid, and off you go! For a loaf made with ~500g flour I'll give it about 15 minutes on max, then remove the lid and turn the heat down to 180 or so; check in another 20 minutes and turn it down to 140-160 depending on how brown the crust is and give it another 20-25 minutes.

Just make sure a) the lid has a metal not a plastic knob, b) never ever absent-mindedly use bare hands to touch the lid or casserole, and c) don't leave your cotton oven glove on the lid once you've removed it - the latent heat can cause it to smoulder away unseen, leading to a kitchen full of acrid smoke when you come back to check on the loaf...

Sounds like you might be over kneading it before the second prove.

I mixed the below recipe together last night about 10pm and plan to do the rest when I get home today. Will report back. The initial mix took about a minute.

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/good-housekeeping-uk/20170901/284322544834341

Generally a mix of wholemeal, strong white, and rye. Something like 3:2:1 ratio, but not always. Will give 50:50 a go this eve.

Yeah I know, but I don't do much before the 2nd prove. Just roll the dough into a bit of a sausage and fold into 3rds and plonk it in the loaf tin (as described in Bread Matters book). Maybe I'm just heavy handed?

@cornelius_blackfoot

No knead dutch oven loaf turned out OK. Lovely crust, a little beery. Would make wicked toast.

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The weird creases are from the parchment paper it was baked in.

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Could be. How long is your second proof?

looks lovely, just rediscovered the large dutch pot my mum left, so will be using that to bake one of those in this weekend.
My GF likes to bake, so I might start a sour dough starter again and see if we can get that going, as we have turned into a house of bread eaters/makers.. I let my die off last time as I wasn't making enough bread to justify the constant feeding of it, this time round might be different..

And I'm thinking it might be interesting to see if you can do the no knead bread with a decent sour dough starter..

It's nice enough for the lack of effort (just time/waiting). Not as tasty as a good sourdough though. Would be a good experiment.

Toasted well this morning.

Until it's risen or I've given up waiting for some action (i.e. several hours and it's not getting any bigger).

Got a 50:50 white/wholemeal on the go last night, left out on the worktop to prove for a little while then in the fridge as I wasn't going to have time to prove, shape, prove, bake before bed. Plenty of rise this morning so now it's in the tin and in the fridge as I'm at work all day. Hopefully there will be some rise when I get home.

I've used this guide for a no-knead sourdough: http://www.theclevercarrot.com/2014/01/sourdough-bread-a-beginners-guide/

Very similar to the above and as you say would depend how active your starter is but I've always had a decent result from it.

got some focaccia cooling

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Where are all the weekend bakers?

Sourdough is definitely improving, I think this might be our (mostly Kate's still) best so far. Longer ferment, shorter proving after shaping. Still a bit shit at scoring but I've got the oven timings much better

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Lovely colour, bet that won’t hang around long.

Made a really nice cheese bread, the cheese swirls inside and I'm really happy with it.

Wow, I'd buy that in the shop! Struggling to get my starter going at the moment so chucked most of it in the bin and kept 5 gr (Rye starter). Will feed every morning with 10 gr organic wholemeal flour and filtered water and see what happens

So on Friday, I baked my Banneton by mistake.

I'm now a baguette kind of guy.

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Some of you may remember I was having some difficulties with getting a good loaf, well a little while ago I went on a sourdough making course at the Thoughtful Bread Company in Bath (xmas pressie from the gf) which was really good and we were allowed to take some of their starter to feed up at home and now I'm getting consistently good sourdoughs, both rye and white loaves so thought I'd share the techniques/recipe. You can obviously vary the amounts for a differrent size loaf but I try to keep the ratios the same for consistent results. Also you can use less starter and a longer prove for a more tangy taste, just add equal parts flour and water to replace the volume of starter you're omitting.
And obviously for sourdough organic flour is a must as there will be lots of yeasts in the flour that occur naturally.

White sourdough:
2:1:1 (flour:starter:water)
This is like an "entry level" sourdough in terms of taste, it's not very sour/tangy but has great texture and crust. This technique works really well for fitting in around work/kids etc.

*400g strong white bread flour (I use Doves Farm because that's what I can get from Sainsbury's)
*200g starter
*200g water (200 ml) (cold tap water works fine for me)
*15g salt (or there abouts, I don't have a digital scale so just go with a few tsp worth)

1. Combine flour, starter, and water, cover bowl with a plastic bag and leave for 30 mins to autolyse.
   
2. Take your dough and stretch it as evenly and thinly as you can on the (unfloured) worktop, sprinkle the salt over the dough and then take the edges/corners and fold into the middle. Fold all the edges in until you have a lump of dough, place back in the bowl, cover with plastic bag, set timer for 45 mins.
   
3. Repeat stretching and folding from step 2 after 45 mins (but without the salt bit). You may find the salt has drawn some water out of the dough, this is fine and will recombine after a little while. Set timer for 45 mins.
   
4. Repeat step 3 once or twice more, leaving about 45 mins between each stretch/fold. By the time you get the the last one you may notice you have some bigger bubbles forming, but don't worry if not.
   
5. Shape your dough, be sure to rest it after the last stretch/fold for a little while, and leave to prove in the fridge overnight.
   
6. Put whatever you are baking your bread on (higher shelf) and an oven dish (lower shelf) into the oven and pre-heat to as hot as it will go (for me this is 250 celcius). If you have a choice then DON'T use a fan, just the heating elements, and I find it works best for me when I only use the lower element as the top one can cause the bread to burn on top.
   
7. Once the oven is up to temperature, take your proved dough, flour and score if you like and put it in the oven along with 500ml of water which goes into the spare (now very hot) oven dish. Close the oven door and set a timer for 35 mins.
   
8. Cool on a wire rack
   
9. Eat
   
   

I usually check the temp with a thermometer before removing from the oven (you're looking for about 93 celcius) but it's always up to temp in the middle after 35 mins so you can probably skip it if you don't have one.

Here's one I made earlier.

Wholemeal rye sourdough
1:1:1(flour:starter:water)
This is really easy to make and even easier to fit around your busy schedule. The bread is really good too but quite a wet dough. I make this one in a small 450g loaf tin, and I haven't tried making a bigger loaf. Because of the water content it might not work so well but I'm planning to start experimenting with my ryes a little so may report back.
This dough is very wet, and too wet to shape really but I willl explain how it can be (sort of) shaped below the main recipe.
Again, I use organic flour because sourdough, yeast etc. Doves Farm because Sainsbury's (and the actual farm is less than 2 miles from home).

• 160g wholemeal rye flour
  
• 160g rye starter (I feed mine wholemeal flour but I'm sure white rye would work too)
  
• 160g water (160ml, just cold tap water again)
  
• salt to taste
  
  

I've forgotten the salt before and it still makes a really good loaf because rye has plenty of flavour, but I think the texture is a little different with the salt.

1. Mix flour, water, salt, and starter in a bowl.
   
2. Dust the inside of your tin with flour .
   
3. Put dough mixture into tin.
   
4. Wet the back of your hand with a little water to stop the dough sticking and press lightly down to get the dough into the corners of the tin and even out any lumpy bits.
   
5. Cover the top of the dough with flour, you need a fair bit here as its a wet dough, just sprinkle until it's all covered.
   
6. Cover with a plastic bag and prove for 3-4 hours. You should see a noticeable rise and the flour on top will have cracked and formed a pleasing pattern. Alternatively prove in the fridge overnight. I have had good results with both proving types.
   
7. Pre heat oven to 220 celcius.
   
8. Bake bread for 45 mins. I don't bother with steam for my rye loaves. Again I check temp with a thermometer but it's always hot enough so you'd probably be fine without.
   
9. Cool upside down to help stop the crust from "lifting off" and eat!
   
   

Not a great photo but you get the idea.

This is very little work for really nice bread. Much easier than the white sour above.

If you want to shape your dough, you can't really do more than a delicious rye cow pat shape with this one but you need to coat the proved dough with flour by adding extra flour to the bowl and scooping under the dough with your scraper and lifting a few times and then turning out onto a well-floured surface. Handling a dough this wet is difficult/impossible without a peel (which I don't have) and you end up with a pretty flat splodge of a loaf so I haven't bothered with this one since the course.

I wouldn't chuck 2/3's away, I'd freeze it.

If you starter then goes wrong, you have something to go back to rather than starting all over a again.

Any bakers want some cheapish flour? 16kg bags from fulham

Nowt to do with me just a heads up.

You must have a big freezer, I chuck 2/3’s away every time I feed which is currently almost daily. Nothing’s gone wrong in the last five years even with many months of neglect in the back of the fridge.

I must be lucky; I'm very happy with the loaves I get from my starter, which spends most of its time in the fridge and gets refreshed in the morning ready to go into the overnight sponge that evening. I'm sure it would be a bit more active if I refreshed it for a couple of days before using, but with the long slow ferments I favour it doesn't make that much difference, and it means I can fit sourdough into my schedule.

As for leftover starter, I make sourdough pancakes, which are amazingly good:

1/2 cup unrefreshed starter, hooch poured off.
1 cup plain flour
1 pot buttermilk (~300ml, or use milk and a squeeze of lemon)
1 lge egg
Glug of veg oil (I use sunflower)
1/2 tsp bicarb

Mix to thickish batter, and drop heaped tablespoonsful into greased pan over medium heat. Flip when upper surface is full of bubbles.

This makes amazingly tender pancakes with a wonderful crisp crust; you can also add stuff to the batter like dried fruit, grated apple, etc.

so what is your schedule then? It sounds like:
Day 1 Morning: remove starter from fridge and refresh, leaving out at room temperature (taking half out for pancakes)
Day 1 Evening: take half(?) of refreshed starter and mix into dough. Refresh starter and return to fridge, leave mixed dough (in fridge or room temperature?) for first proof overnight.
Day 2 Morning: knead dough and shape, put aside to rest (in loaf tin or banneton presumably?) for second proof.
Day 2 (afternoon/evening?): slash and bake (in dutch oven?)

I am currently struggling to find a good rhythm, and I get an OK loaf, but would like something with a much more open crumb. Here is this weekend's effort, which was 1/3 rye (starter "discard" having been in fridge for a week, plus refreshed starter added 4 hours later, plus some rye flour), 1/3 strong white wheat (including white starter), 1/3 strong wholewheat.

I usually only have time to bake on the weekend, so I tend to take my starter out of the fridge to refresh on a thursday at 6pm (putting the "discard" into dough 1), then at 11pm (again putting "discard" into dough 1). I leave dough 1 to proof overnight in the fridge, then Friday morning I will start to mix a couple new loaves with the refreshed starters, so I will add rye starter to wholemeal and wheat white flour usually with seeds or something (dough 2) and then a strong white dough that is for pizza dough/ciabatta/focaccia (dough 3). Dough 2 will usually proof until Friday night and then be shaped and go into the banneton to bake Saturday morning. Dough 3 depends what I do with it, but I usually just leave it in the fridge as a high-hydration blob until a few hours before the promise of pizza comes up. By then it doesn't really have time to take shape as I would like, but I can usually get it thin enough that it provides an adequate vehicle for cheesy goodness.