Yesterday was a milestone day for a key contributor to my baking. It was 10 years ago(!) that we first said hello to Aage, and he's been a faithful companion ever since. I had hoped to be able to bake a loaf of bread to celebrate his 10th birthday yesterday, but we had been travelling back from a Thanksgiving weekend away with Fiona's family, and I was absolutely exhausted and Aage hadn't been fed. But that very first sourdough loaf ten years ago was made with an overnight rise - so today is still the 10th anniversary of the very first loaf that I baked with Aage. However you cut it though, we're celebrating a decade with Aage!
A Birthday Loaf
Ingredients
For the sponge
- 175g Aage
- 150g Warm water
- 100g Wholemeal flour
- 100g Warm water
- 300g Wholemeal flour
- 8g Salt
Method
- Mix together the ingredients for the sponge in a mixing bowl and wrap in a bin bag.
- Leave in a warm place for ~5 hours.
- Add the sponge to all the remaining ingredients and mix to form a dough.
- Knead for ~15 minutes, then shape and wrap in the bin bag once again.
- Leave to prove for ~1.25 hours.
- Preheat oven to 220C with a Dutch oven inside.
- Score and place dough in Dutch oven, sprinkling lightly with water.
- Bake for 15 minutes.
- Remove lid of Dutch oven, turn oven down to 200C and bake for a further 15 minutes.
This one's a bit of a quick, relatively basic loaf. It's actually quite a low hydration bread because I wanted to make it easy for myself given that I was baking on a weeknight. But it's really nice to be baking by hand again - it's been quite a long time!
I baked this one on the baking parchment. I still haven't got the hang of scoring my bread...
I was rushing this one so that we could have the bread for dinner, so this loaf was a bit underdone - I knew it would be, but I was getting hungry and impatient. But it's still not bad - just a little stodgy in the centre. I think it could have done with another quarter hour or maybe even half an hour longer in the oven. But the crust has a lovely texture to it, and there's a great flavour to the bread anyway, so it's not all bad!