Baking sourdough with a crispy ear is often hailed as the holy grail of home baking. The satisfying crunch and rustic look are highly sought after. But is it overrated? Though it took a lot of trial and error to perfect, I thought to myself, does it truly enhance flavor? I'm curious what others think about the crispy ear obsession?
by lazyw1zard
5 Comments
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### Recipe ###
Ingredients:
– 500g bread flour
– 350g water (room temperature)
– 100g active sourdough starter
– 10g salt
1. Combine flour and water. Let it rest for 30 minutes (autolyse).
2. Add Starter and Salt.
3. BF, cover and let the dough rise for 5 hours, folding every 30 minutes during first 2 hours.
4. Turn the dough onto a floured surface, shape it into a round or oval loaf.
5. Place the dough in a proofing basket, cover, and leave in fridge for 12-13 hrs.
6. Preheat oven to 250°C (480°F) with a Dutch oven inside.
7. Transfer the dough to parchment paper, score dough half inch deep.
8. Place the dough in the hot Dutch oven, cover, and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for another 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
9. Let the bread cool inside oven with door open.
An ear like this one is manageable. Sometimes my bread bursts open with so much vigour, it creates an ear that’s almost completely separate from the bread, which looks nice, but is completely impractical in terms of eating and slicing. So, for me, small ear is fine, but the extremes you sometimes see touted as ‘perfect’, I literally just cut those off and eat them separately.
It doesn’t enhance flavor per se. However, if you can get a nice ear means you’re doing it right, hence the bread will have good flavor.
Anyway, beautiful loaf! Especially the ear! I do love a good ear on a sourdough, it’s aesthetically very pleasing for me.
That’s your actual bread porn. Cracking looking loaf. Bravo!