Disaster...had to pry out stuck loaf then this was inside!
Hi everyone, I am a fairly new sourdough baker, have built up a working starter over the course of a month and have baking bread fairly consistently even if not perfectly these past couple of weeks. I tried the Overnight Country Blonde recipe in Ken Forkish's FWSY, and it felt like things were proceeding on point. Things got sticky (ha! no pun intended) when I started moving to the baking stage. I only have one banneton so used a bowl with a well-floured towel, but the dough still stuck so probably deflated somewhat. The instructions said to just put the dough straight into a preheated Dutch oven, which I did (I have a Lodge 5 qt. enameled version). Baked per instructions on a rack with a baking pan on top to help keep the bottom from burning. Took it out at the appointed time, but the bread would NOT budge. It was completely utterly stuck, no amount of gentle and even non-gentle prying worked. I tried some tricks such as keeping it covered, letting some steam try to loosen it, but to no avail. Finally I had to start hacking away at it to loosen. The whole top part pulled off, revealing this inside. So not only did I somehow do something wrong to cause it to stick to begin with, but then inside revealed raw flour!!!! I am at a total loss. On both fronts. I don't think I will ever put dough straight into a Dutch oven again, that is for sure. Does anyone do that??? I was just trying to follow the recipe verbatim but that was clearly a mistake! Any suggestions welcome.
I’ve found turning the dough out onto a piece of baking paper and lifting the whole thing into the pot easier. Any excess paper can be cut off once it’s in the pot. You’re less likely to fumble it in off centre or burn yourself and makes it easier to score first.
On the flour, I can only suggest that it either wasn’t completely mixed through or more likely- some excess flour got folded in while shaping.
On the plus side, that crust looks really nice!
I have had bread stick like this in the past. These days I use a room-temp, oiled clay baker. I gave up on parchment because it always embeds itself into the bottom of my loaf and has to be cut/scraped off. If I didn't have the clay baker I would oil a pot and put the dough into it cold for the final proof, with a dusting of cornmeal under it.
I know the hot dutch oven is a thing that many are devoted to, and I know it can give good results, but for me the safety issues are too great to be interested in that method. And if you're preheating you can't oil the pot to prevent sticking.
King Arthur Flour conducted tests and good good results with a non-preheated dutch oven, and that's good enough to convince me that preheating isn't necessary. https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2017/07/05/baking-in-a-cold-dutch-oven
If you want to preheat, you can try parchment (maybe I'm using the wrong kind) or putting a heavy dusting of cornmeal on the bottom of the pot before you place the loaf.
I forgot to say: the dry flour probably just means that you forgot to dust the excess flour off the loaf when you were shaping it.
Hi agree with the others, turning your dough out onto parchment paper which you can then use, like a sling, to transfer the dough to the Dutch oven. I’ve never had bread stick to parchment. With respect to the raw flour, I’ve had that happen when I used a bit too much flour on my workspace and forgot to dust off flour during final shaping.
Benny