I finally got into the sourdough trend three years later than everyone else, after getting sick of paying $9 for a loaf I actually like from the bakery. But I was weird, I don't really like boules because I mainly use sourdough for toast and sandwiches and want loaves that provided similar size pieces that fit in my toaster. And every loaf-pan recipe I tried came out super-dense. Eventually, I figured out how to make a batard, and a recipe that didn't come out super dense, and I have something I would be content toasting for breakfast every morning.
- Starter: I mostly followed the King Arthur Baking guide, although I modified it based on tips from the /r/sourdough wiki to include ~25% wheat flour to get it to actually rise. I could probably reduce the sizes to waste less flour, but right now I'm at the point where I don't want to mess with something that works.
- Recipe: I mostly followed King Arthur's Naturally Leavened Sourdough Bread recipe, although I made some changes based on the high-altitude guide since my house is over 5000 ft elevation: add 1 tbsp flour, add 1 tbsp water, bake at 475°F for 35 minutes.
- Shaping: I followed the instructions for a batard from this video for Pain De Campagne, although I gave up on trying that recipe after multiple attempts that all had huge tunnels. It seems like something is wrong with how I was proofing it, although I don't know enough to figure out how to fix it. And then I scored it cross-wise instead of length-wise, to try to get it to expand length-wise instead of expanding too wide to fit in my toaster.
And I think it turned out well! Crumb seemed nice, no big tunnels, it fit in my toaster and tasted great with apple butter!
It may not be the greatest loaf of bread in the history of the world, but I made it from scratch, and I like it.
