A very special birthday

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

For the dough

• 100g Warm water
• 300g Wholemeal flour
• 8g Salt

Method

1. Mix together the ingredients for the sponge in a mixing bowl and wrap in a bin bag.
2. Leave in a warm place for ~5 hours.
3. Add the sponge to all the remaining ingredients and mix to form a dough.
4. Knead for ~15 minutes, then shape and wrap in the bin bag once again.
5. Leave to prove for ~1.25 hours.
6. Preheat oven to 220C with a Dutch oven inside.
7. Score and place dough in Dutch oven, sprinkling lightly with water.
8. Bake for 15 minutes.
9. 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...

The cuts opened up nicely, even if they did look rather raggedy before going it went into the oven

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!