| Hi, Sample
I've pulled many flat sourdough loaves out of the oven and become enveloped in the looming cloud of failure.
Messing things up once or twice is expected and we can simply chalk it up to experience. But when it happens time, after time, after time, it becomes consuming. This is the point when many beginner sourdough bakers give up. And you know what, I get it.
There are so many things that need to align to consistently pull a great loaf out of the oven (anyone can get lucky once or twice). And if you are consistently failing... the distance between where you are now and succeeding seems light years apart.
Sourdough takes times to get right. If you've been following my content for a while you'll know I am a big believer in developing your intuition for baking sourdough. You can watch countless tutorials but you'll never really master the process until you've got the "touch".
One of the biggest hurdles to get over at the beginning is learning how to handle the dough and work out if the hydration of the dough is on point. Baking the loaf in a tin can really help out with this.
Even if your shaping technique sucks, and your dough has been wrestled into the tin, while frantically sticking to everything in desperate attempt to break free, there is a very good chance your loaf will come out well. You see, the tin supports the loaf during the proofing and the baking, removing the dangers of the loaf collapsing when you turn it out of the basket or deflating as you drop it into your dutch oven.
It also removes a lot of the tension from the process and allows you to focus on trying to understand the hydration of the dough and how to handle it. But it also delivers a really really good loaf of sourdough which means your debut into the wonderful (but sometimes frustrating) world of sourdough will be positive.
The fail-safe recipe I've created uses pretty much the same formula as you'd use if you were proofing the dough in a basket. This means you can spend some time dialing in your hydration while having the support of the tin. Once you're confident in handling the dough you'll have relatively smooth transition into proofing your dough in a banneton.
This fail-safe process is simple, quick, relaxed, produces a wonderful loaf and builds our confidence. So, in the future, when the inevitable happens and things go wrong, you'll have some successful bakes under your belt!
Put the fail-safe recipe to the test and try it out! |
