Tartine for Two: Not Quite Following the Formula

Back from vacation, I needed to bake some sourdough.  Tartine’s Basic Country Bread has become my favorite.   Its crumb is my ideal texture for a hearth bread--just the right amount of chew, and airy and moist.  But, as I’ve noted before, large loaves just aren’t practical for our everyday use.   Last time I baked a batch, it was one large loaf and two small ones.  This time I made four half-kilo loaves, two batards and two boules.

I mostly followed the Tartine BCB formula, using Central Milling white and whole wheat flours.  But I departed from gospel in the following ways:

·      I only made as much levain as one recipe requires

·      I did the stretch-and-folds when convenient, five of them at intervals of between 30 and 45 minutes over a 3 ½ hour bulk ferment

·      I divided the dough into four loaves of about 490 grams each

·      I baked the loaves with steam on a baking stone, in two batches an hour apart, having proofed the second two loaves in the cool basement.

My hope was that these departures would not affect the result, and I was very pleased.  The crackly crust, the tender crumb and the subtly-sour complex flavor are as good as the one kilo loaves baked in a Dutch Oven, and we can have loaves of a usable size in the freezer.

To prove the point, we ate most of one not-quite-fully-cooled loaf for dinner, with a medley of melted cheese for the main course, and with a mix of peanut butter and passion fruit-jalapeno jam for dessert.

It’s great to be back and baking in my own kitchen!

Glenn