Mistakes and other lucky strikes

 Introducing - the tastiest mistake I ever made.

This bread went through a comedy of errors beyond belief!

I've been craving bread, but have not really had the time to bake.

I've been keeping active sour dough on account of frequent Marketplace requests for sour dough. Then a few days ago, I had several rqeuests from people who were very excited about embarking on their sour dough journey - and finally I could not help myself:

I had fed the culture in the morning and it was amazingly active. When I finally lost the battle with my self, it was 7 PM. I starting the dough knowing that it meant a late night... but who can argue with bread cravings!

Those of you not into baking - and maybe some of you who are freshly into baking - may appreciate getting some insight into the "common core math" that is going on in my head as I make this "it's gonna be a late night" calculation:

Bread baking can be chunked into several distinct processes. Each process has a point where it can be stopped or slowed down. Let's look at what they are

If I bake according to my sour dough recipe on this blog my process can be turned into the following chunks

1. Feeding on the big day (waking up the sour dough) - 5 hr (stop/slow in fridge)
2. Making dough (stretch and fold) - 3 hr (active time followed by stop/slow in fridge)
3. Rest in basket - 1 hr
4. Fridge - over night
5. Bake - 2 hr (semi-active time followed by eating bread)

The table below breaks the steps down into their component parts for those of you , who are curious.

So a 7 PM dough making start, meant shaping the dough at 10 PM, resting at 11 PM and heading to the fridge at midnight.

Except, that's not what happened. I mixed the dough, folded in the salt 30 minutes later and set my time for 30 minutes.

Then I woke up around 5 am the next morning.

I wished I had taken a picture. The dough was filling the salad bowl and sticking to the towel cover. I was still tired, didn't want to deal it at that moment.

I just separated the dough into 2 loaf-size lumps and dumped them in the banneton bread form. No shaping involved. I just stuck them in the fridge to be dealt with later. Then I forgot them in the fridge for 2 days.

Remembering the rule - always bake it - when I found it 2 days later, I did bake it.

The dough looked a little worse for the wear, slightly dry and discolored. But I figured that I could still throw away the baked loaf.

I dumped one cold dough into the Romertopf, one into the Dutch oven, set the oven to 500F, hit bake and forgot to set the timer. A while later, as I was smelling bread, I rushed into the kitchen to take the lid off - this time I set the timer - and promptly burnt the bread.

Remembering the rule - always cut it - and always taste it - I did.

OMG! The flavor profile of this loaf is incredible! I'm never baking bread immediately again!