Sunday I made sourdough pancakes for breakfast that turned out really tasty, and, delighted by my success, I made some sourdough bread. I loosely followed two recipes, but forgot to add salt, so the final product was really flat tasting, like it had no flavor. There was no 'sour' flavor from the sourdough at all. It smells and tastes pretty yeasty...actually, it smells like sweaty gym socks. Not super appetizing.
I'm not sure what went wrong with the bread. I think I didn't have enough sourdough starter in it (I used 1 cup), and I think I needed to let the starter ferment longer (like another day) after making the pancakes. When I made the pancakes, I 'refreshed' the starter right away, then made the bread a few hours later. So, I'll try again in a few days. Until then, I think I am going to make garlic bread out of the failed loaf...maybe lots of garlic will cover up the gym sock smell. Also, note the issue of baking bread in our oven. I can't bake it on the lowest rack or the bottom of the loaf will burn. So I have to put it on the top rack to bake and the bread rose up until it hit the over ceiling! (the oven flame is is in the middle of the oven so you can put things under the flame to broil or above it to bake...but apparently you can't bake tall things. Or a turkey.).
Well, it looks like an impressive loaf. Nary a whiff of gym socks to be had via the screen. And yeah. You don't have a lot of vertical space to work with. Yikes!
ReplyDelete