Bread

What part of the process? Or all of it? What's going wrong?

Didn’t turn out too bad. I still think there’s improvements to be made with the starter. Just to get a bit more spring.

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Nice one!

I also need to work on the shaping. I’ve found that the bubbles in the loaf are very well distributed. More so it’s lots of little ones and one massive one.

A colleague has just arrived with an entire suitcase of "the best bread you'll ever eat" - so this is an emergency:

Does anyone in Soho have a breadknife on them today?
Failing that, does anyone know where I can get one of the Opinel breadknives in Soho today?

I've long fancied one, and this feels like the right time.

Status: Neutra Kitchen was the winner, but apparently on back order until new year. As you were.

Stollen.

1 for now, 1 for 2 weeks time.

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Made a little water bath to prove the dough.

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Nailed it

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Looks yummy

Had some with poached eggs this morning. There were plenty of air bubbles, but they wasn’t an open crumb.

After many issues, I have a new oven, and with that can now go back to making sourdough again.

I put mine into storage in the summer, turning them into dry shards. I've started the process for revival today, and put it in my proofing oven at 24 degrees after mixing with fresh flour and water.

However, after a few hours, I'm starting to see some separation of liquid at the top. I assume there's a little too much water in there, am I OK to skim it off or leave it be and just stir? I appreciate a lot of blogs say to leave for 24 hours at a warm temp before then giving it a proper refeed

I find it funny how we all have issues with sour dough at some point in the learning process. Yet it’s been made for thousands of years.

Possibly because we get to compare our efforts so much more easily, and there are defined things to aspire to - spring, open crumb, ear etc etc. Also I assume bread making was a regional oral tradition, and people would have to use the local yeast and local grains, yet now we source ingredients from further afield.

It’s also a constant game of how can I improve it, and learn to take into consideration different atmospheric conditions, grains/flours, starter make up etc etc. Perhaps I should vary my flour mixes less to get greater consistency and then modify one factor at a time to improve my loaves.

Christmas eve loaves

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Well, first attempt back with new oven and revival of starter went as expected. Might just stick to boules for a bit

Where do you think it went wrong? It looks dark.

Think it was likely my shaping; thought I'd stitched up pretty good, but then scored it a bit poorly and there we have it. Setup seemed OK, baking stone with some lava rocks underneath that had a good chunk of steam, and baked for about 40 mins at 240c

I’m shit at shaping. Normally the dough is so wet it just plops into a giant puddle

Try reducing hydration while you get a hang on shaping and then increase. If mine are shaped bad I'll pinch and fold them once I've put in a proving basket too, which helps.

Sourdough brioche laminated buns

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Look amazing

They've turned out pretty yum. I was inspired by this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr-O8HixMDE

I followed another brioche recipe re: quantities (https://grantbakes.com/poor-mans-sourdough-brioche-recipe/) and added cinnamon sugar on the buttered sheet before rolling up, which gave it more defined layers I feel.

Thanks I'll have a try. Some brioche stuff and croissants are my aims for next year.

Really wasn't very hard. Brioche is pretty easy as long as you develop the gluten well before adding the butter.