Two out of three ain't bad...

... if you're Meatloaf, but two out of four just does not cut it for sourdough bread.

I've tinkered with sourdough quite a bit over the years--the starter in my refrigerator will be ten years old sometime this year, in fact. Mostly it's been an exercise in tweaking an existing recipe. But this time I tried something completely different from usual. Last night I dumped a cup and a quarter of starter into a bowl, then stirred in a random bit of sugar and about a cup of flour, and covered the bowl with two damp towels.. This morning it was a nice bubbly mass of goo, which is what I expected. So I reserved a cup of flour for the kneading-bowl, and added about half a cup or so to the goo.

The goo refused to absorb even the half-cup, so I dumped the lumpy lot into the kneading bowl and fought it until I had dough that had that familiar smooth, elastic quality. At the time I figured that the starter must've been more flour-laden than I'd thought.

I've been trying to avoid introducing any fat into the recipe because I want the tough outer crust. The dough was barely even tacky, so I just plopped the smaller-than-normal mass into a larger serving-bowl, covered it with the re-dampened dishtowel, and let it have about four hours of rising time (normal for the sourdoughs I've made).

When it was time to transfer it to the baking pan, what a mess! Somehow my barely-tacky dough had morphed into The Blob. As the size didn't justify dirtying a full cookie sheet, I just transferred it (as best I could) to a greased layer-cake pan and baked it.

The results are mixed. The crust is definitely tougher. The characteristic sourdough "tang" is excellent. But the crumb is somewhat spongy, most likely because the dough was so damp when it went into the oven. Moreover, it rose quite a bit while baking, resulting in cracking on the sides (a problem I've had with other versions of the recipe--a real hit-or-miss thing) and crazing on the bottom.

Next time I think that I will let the dough have its first rising in the kneading bowl and add more flour after the first rising. Then I will either a.) allow for a second rising before transferring to the baking sheet/pan, or b.) allow at least two hours for the final rising.

But it's supposed to be the journey, not the destination, y'know. And butter melting into still-warm bread covers a multitude of sins.