Twelve months of dense, sulking loaves. Then one Tuesday I was too tired to fuss, and it rose like it had been waiting for me to leave it alone.
The problem was never the flour. It was that I kept intervening — poking, re-shaping, checking. Bread is mostly a lesson in leaving a thing to become itself while you go and do something else.
The version that works
- A slow, cold overnight rise in the fridge.
- Wet hands instead of extra flour when shaping.
- A hotter oven than feels sensible, and steam for the first ten minutes.
It cracked properly when it cooled. I stood in the kitchen and ate the end piece with too much butter, which is the only correct way to test a loaf.
Filed under Kitchen