Any Excuse

Day 9: I really never need an excuse to make bread, but since the recipe which came with my new "Dutch oven" style loaf pan suggested an 80% hydration dough, my scientific curiosity pushed me forward in an experiment. My regular sourdough is roughly 60% hydration (560g flour to 330g water, counting the poolish), so I realized this white bread was going to be a much wetter mix and harder to get in the pan. How would it turn out? Well, there was only one way to find out. The recipe starts yesterday. Combine 450g bread flour with 360ml water, 1/2 tsp. dry yeast and 1.5 tsp salt into a wet, shaggy dough (I use my bagel-twizzling stick to stir mine...wooden spoon handle works well, too). Cover it and let it proof in a warm place for 12-18 hours until it's nice and bubbly. Pour it out onto a floured surface, try to shape it into something remotely resembling a loaf (I did tell you it's a very wet dough), cover and let rise for an hour. Halfway into that hour, start preheating the pan and lid in an oven set to 450 degrees. When the full hour is up, make a slit down the center of the loaf to release steam, coerce it into the pan (I lined my pan with parchment), put the lid on and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid, bake for an additional 15 minutes. And this is what you get: a lovely high loaf with a crisp thin crust and a light, airy texture perfect for sandwiches or toast.