23 June, 2008

Natural leaven - day 6

It is looking lovely now. And can be used. Tricky. The problem is that this bread takes ages to rise. It is a slow slow slow bread. The recipe for the white leaven bread given in The Handmade Loaf takes from 8 am to just before 7 pm. The thing is, I was really busy today doing lots of other stuff including baking a "normal" batch of bread with fresh yeast. So I am going to take Dan Lepard's advice and mix the dough before I go to bed, then pop it into the fridge overnight leaving it ready to get going tomorrow morning when I should have a bit more time. When people ask me how I find the time to make bread, I usually say it doesn't take long but you do have to be there. For this recipe, the kneading is little and often, followed by slow rises. So you really do have to bea round. That will come tomorrow. Meanwhile here's a picture of the leaven today.

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