June 8, 2016 - 4:43pm
Sourdough
Hello
I need help please. I am new to baking bread. This is my third attempt at sour dough bread. It taste great, but I don't understand why my loaf is splitting like this.
Any tips or recommendations would be much appreciated.
Many thanks
Zuzu
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expand. This is a classic shaping error and where the scoring wasn't deep enough to force the expansion at the slashes.
Yoi will get the hanfing of it.
Did you slash this bread? I can't really see any evidence of that.
What's the recipe/link?
How long did it proof before baking? and
Did you cover the dough while it was rising to prevent the surface from drying out?
The more details the better.
Also, what is your shaping technique? There could be a lot of reasons for your bread turning out this way; we need a few more details about recipe, timing, technique, flour etc. in order to postulate about the cause.
For example, it looks like it was baked in a pot / dutch oven. When you shaped it, did you fold the edges of the dough into the middle and press down? Did you proof it in a basket? Which way up (smooth side or folded side)? Did you drop it into a pre-heated pot? Which way up (smooth side or folded side)?
Hello everyone
thank you for the support.
ive tried to slash it with a knife but it's not a slash as such, more like a cut in the dough. While proofing the dough was covered but air could of got in as I lossely closed the lid.
i have been using spelt flour. 500g White,500g whole meal, three wooden spoons of the starter, pinch of salt and two spoons of natural yogurt. The recipe is from a friend.
so I made the starter the night before around 8pm put the main one back in the fridge and my new one I left out over night. Went to work the next day and when I came home around 6pm I made the dough, left in a plastic bowl to proof. Around 10pm I kneedead it some more and let it proof for another hour, before cooking for 1 hour in the oven with a tray full of water at the bottom shelf. I used a pot made from clay to cook it in. I don't really know how to shape the dough, but made it nice and round and the smooth side up. The pot was not hot, but before I put the dough in the oven the tray of water was already in there.
i hope this is enough information.
thanks again everyone for the help much appreciated
...reading the excellent TFL Handbook - a link to it is in the menu at the top of this page - and check out the many shaping videos on YouTube (to begin with it might be worth concentrating on vids by well-known bakers). There's no short cut I'm afraid. An unshaped loaf will do exactly what happened to you. Shaping isn't hard, it just needs a little practice.
Good luck.