I tried my hand at making a starter years ago and it went poorly. I was gifted some starter earlier this week and have been bulking it up in order to bake some bread this weekend. The starter is MUCH better than any of the ones I've ever made, so Ive had high hopes all week that my sourdough will actually come out decent this time.
I've been following this recipe, and it's been going....not well. Everything was weighed to the gram, including the starter, and "lukewarm" water was about 80ish degrees. The dough is so unbelievably sticky that I can barely scrape it off the sides of the bowl.
Is this normal? It's been years since I've done this so I'm back to questioning everything. I'm planning to just drop the whole thing into a Dutch oven and cook it, but I understand that I'm deviating from the recipe. My Dutch oven cooks were just so much better.
Cna anyone provide a better recipe for just a basic sourdough boule that you've had decent success with? I'd really like to continue baking bread, but I know for a fact that I'll wind up giving up again if I have too many failures (I think I baked 8 different times a few years ago, and I gave up because they were always so dense, and flat.). Really want something with a good, fluffy, stretchy crumb.
Any advice or questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
You’ve gotten some good advice. I’m surprised your dough was sticky with the recipe you linked, but that’s not a bad thing. Maybe your starter was more wet. I’ve had good results with both sticky and stuff dough. I wet my hands with cold water to handle the sticky dough.
Let us know how it comes along!
It came out good. I tried to post a photo, but none of my Lemmy apps will allow me to upload. I'm going to try doing it from the computer tomorrow.
It didn't rise as much as I'd like, but I think I can just drop it in my Dutch oven and let it rise there for an hour or so before putting it in the oven.
The taste was great, and the crumb was nice. It's much, much better than the last time I tried to do it.