A laboratory in the galley

Addendum to my sourdough post: Here's a recipe that produces only one two-pound loaf, which is about right for the Capt and me. In this version, you spritz the loaf and the inside of the oven with water.

And on this page of the same website is probably more information than you'd ever want about sourdough, like this caution:

Allowing the dough to bulk ferment or proof too long will cause the gluten to start breaking down and the dough to get "gluey." When you bake overfermented dough it will spread apart, have a ghostly whitish color and look glazed like porcelain.

If you want to be an expert and don't mind wading through a lot of info, it's a good place to start, learning about things like bannetons (French proofing baskets lined with linen), couches (liners for proofing baskets made of canvas), boules (rounded loaf) and batards (baguette-shaped but slightly larger loaf), hydration percentages, how to keep the dough from crawling out of the bowl, and how to line up your gluten (?!)

And here's a website showing all the traditional shapes of artisan breads, from baton to Coburg to Fougasse.

And if you like your instructions on video, here's "the world's easiest sourdough" recipe. This version uses a heavy-duty pot with a lid to bake the loaf. This version warns against using chlorinated water, as the chlorine can kill the starter.


And now I will say no more on the subject of sourdough, at least until I succeed in producing some bread!