More Baguettes

This week I made more baguettes. Small, light and crusty, they makes the perfect tuna mayo sandwich. Yum! Yum!

So anyway, this week I proofed my bread seam side up, which appeared to work a little better than the prescribed seam side down. After carefully rolling the little rascals over from the tea towel and onto the wooden peel, the baguettes seemed to have a smoother, tighter top surface. Which led to some surprisingly satisfying slashing action with the old lame.

Meet Cuthbert

Cuthbert as you can plainly see is a batch of leaven. He lives in a kilner jar.

I first made the leaven using D Lepard's recommended recipe: flour, water, live yogurt and a few raisins. After a couple of days the lively looking concoction was sieved leaving a thin white soup, the basis for my leaven.

From then on, its a case of regularly refreshing the leaven with flour and water. If used daily, you just add the same amount of flour and water that you remove in leaven for you loaf, storing the jar in a warmish place. If you're not using it for a few days, just stash it in the fridge; you get it active again a few days before use by adding some fresh water and flour.

I like the fact that a good leaven can be kept going for years. In his book Dan Lepard waves around a batch of leaven that is reckoned to be about a hundred years old. Cuthbert's only six weeks old! He's just a baby.

Lovely Mill Loaf

This week's star bread was a handsome Mill Loaf.

Made using white leaven (generously donated by Cuthbert) and a mix of strong white (60%), wholemeal (30%) and rye flour (10%).

With the leaven giving the loaf a slight sourness, the wholemeal and rye added a denser, soft crumb with a nutty edge to the taste.

I reckon this is the best looking loaf I've done so far…

Lepard's Leven Loaf

Friday I made white leaven bread following Dan Lepard's book, The Handmade Loaf (the second book all home-bread makers should own).

Using leaven, the dough rises more slowly and has a softer crumb and stronger flavour than bread made with fresh yeast. Using a home-made leaven gives the baker a further boost of self-satisfaction too.

I would note that the baking times quoted in his book seem to be almost double what they should be. 50-70 minutes at 220ºc for a 400g loaf?