I have two loaves of home-baked bread cooling on the stovetop.
The fed discard from Wednesday's feeding bloomed nicely, so Friday before I left for work I made dough using a recipe I found online as a guide, figuring to let the dough rest and rise while I was at work then shape it, pan it, rest it again, and bake it Friday night after work.
I started with 3 cups of AP flour and 1 1/2 tsp salt in the KA mixer bowl, combined it with the whisk, then added two cups of starter and a cup of water and mixed with the paddle until the dough started coming together, then switched to the hook and let it knead for abt 10 mins.
I chose to leave the dough in the mixer bowl (stainless steel), covered it, and left it on the stove.
When I got home I was surprised to find batter instead of dough, though it appeared to be quite active in the bowl. After some thought I figured I'd try to salvage it by mixing in some more flour.
It probably took a couple of cups (I wasn't measuring, just watching the dough react to the hook) before the dough started pulling away from the sides of the bowl and forming into a ball on the hook. The recipe I was using for guidance indicated it would make one loaf (maybe bigger pans?) but it looked to me like I had enough dough for two loaves.
Of course, I had to find the pans, dump the junk accumulated in them, wash them, then grease them.
When I got back to the mixer, the dough had reverted to batter again. I stirred in another cup or so of flour, got a nice ball going on the dough hook, turned out the dough onto a floured board, divided it into two roughly equal portions, kneaded each a bit to pick up a little flour and knock the 'sticky' off it, rolled it into rectangular shapes, dropped in to the pans, and put the pans in the oven to rest and rise.
Abt an hour and a half later, both loaves were crowning above the pans so I moved the pans to the counter, and set the oven to 400*F. When the oven was up to temp, I put the bread in and set a 30 minute timer. After 30 mins the tops were very light brown and the sides and bottoms appeared to be fully baked, so I gave them another 5 mins to see if it would help with browning the tops.
After another 5 mins, I pulled the pans, dumped the loaves and let them rest on the stove grates to cool.
Both loaves feel heavy for their size - perhaps a little more rise time in the pan is needed?
The crust isn't as brown as I expected - perhaps a little longer baking time is needed, or dressing with oil or butter before baking?
The texture is even but a bit thick. I presume if I'd added enough flour initially and it all had time to work it would turned out lighter or "fluffier".
The taste is good - just a slight tang or sour under the butter. I'll try toasting it later today if the kids leave me any.
Baby got the usual. Thinking abt doing smaller daily feeds or perhaps storing her in the fridge and feeding once a week - between the starter and the baking I've gone thru most of a 5 lb bag of flour this week.
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