Basic White Sourdough Bread

I am baking up some Basic White Sourdough Bread this morning. I read Aussie Bill’s blog on slashing: http://bill44.sourdough.net.au/ So I did have cold dough and it was a bit on the wet side. I slashed deeper to see if I could remedy the “cracking” crust syndrome. The dough spread and the loaf was flat. I couldn’t take a picture because it was cut into from both sides and obliterated faster than I could grab the camera! I will say that it was the chewiest crispy crust with a wonderful sour tang, and I got into the action too! I used Northwest sourdough starter and used the basic recipe found on the recipes page of my site. I did add 1/3 cup of cracked wheat to the recipe. Anyway, the first loaf was flattened, so I cut not so deep with the second loaf but it was still somewhat flattish, I began to think I had not proofed long enough when I noticed that the center part of the first loaf was somewhat denser than the edges. So for my last loaf, I proofed longer and slashed regular, and this is what I got:

The crumb was nice too:

I felt like the dough was too sticky when I was working with it and felt I had overproofed or overbeat it in the mixer.

I also made some Waffles with the Alaskan sourdough starter for breakfast this morning. It has homemade raspberry sauce and whipped cream on it:

The recipe to these waffles is on the recipe page at:

http://www.northwestsourdough.com/recipes

My daughter mixed all three of my sourdough starters together and has fed her “experiment” for a while. She is making a batch of Basic White sourdough tonight. So far it isn’t raising too well. It is at the three hour mark. I told her to wait longer to see what happens. I am going to start a batch of Two Night Super Sour tonight. I will see how that turns out on Saturday.