megumi's blog

i recently acquired the tartine bread book, and i’ve been trying to work making bread in to my schedule. i leave for work in the morning and come back in the evening, so there isn’t much time to maintain bread dough. in the last week i’ve gone through 20 lbs of flour and countless dense, hard to eat loaves (but i’ve eaten all of them anyway) 

i’m genuinely falling in love with bread - and i was inspired by chad’s story to dream of my own ideal loaf, and i’m going to try to achieve it. but first, i must master the basics!

i’ve been feeding my starter every morning and it has been bubbling and smelling like the book says it should - acidic and vinegary before feeding and sweet and milky after. however, every loaf that i’ve made has not had many air bubbles. i had previously blamed this on my being too rough with the dough during folding. 

i’ve been dropping bits of the starter and the leaven in to a bowl of water just for fun, to see if it floats. it never has, but i’ve been going off of smell and logic. it smells right, and it has been enough time, so i’ll bake with it.

but last night i had a breakthrough! i had forgotten to feed my starter for a few days and it had grown to three times its original size. i dropped a spoonful in to water and it floated! it has definitely been the highlight of my week. now i know why my bread hasn’t been the way it should be - my starter just wasn’t active enough.

so! with a starter that passes the float test, i have made a leaven and i can’t wait to see how the finished loaf bakes.