I had to make some bread after almost two years without baking

Long story short, life has been busy over the past two years (getting evicted, buying a house, having a second baby, my wife finishing university…) so I stopped baking at home for a while.

But I was reading this sub and thought it might be worth sharing some of the knowledge I had about cold retardation (leaving the dough in the fridge overnight to improve flavour and to make it easier to fit into your schedule). Then I figured, why not actually bake again? I don't have my sourdough starter anymore, but I did have some fast action yeast. So I got my 2 year old son to help me, made a mess in the kitchen, threw together some flour, water, salt and yeast (still remember the ratios, so it was easy), and we made some dough.

After shaping, I put it in the fridge and baked it the next morning. New oven, new house, new fridge, different conditions. That meant baking while making breakfast, because the dough was ready in the morning. But since it was cold proofed, I had plenty of time to deal with life without worrying about overproofing much.

I’m not sure if the sub rules say I have to share the recipe, but I’ll leave it here anyway:

Recipe
– 500g strong white bread flour
– 360g warm water
– 2g fast action yeast
– 10g salt

Schedule:
17:10 – Autolyse flour + water
17:30 – Add yeast + salt, mix thoroughly
17:35 – Stretch & fold #1
17:55 – Stretch & fold #2
18:15 – Stretch & fold #3
18:35 – Stretch & fold #4
18:35–20:30 – Bulk fermentation
20:30 – Pre-shape, rest 20 min
20:50 – Final shape, then banneton, then into fridge

I wrote down these times mainly to make sure bulk fermentation happened around 18:30 (right before the kids bath).

The next morning I preheated the oven high (forgot to lower it after, lol), so I ended up baking at 250°C for 10 minutes, then lowered it to 220°C for another 15 minutes. Then uncovered dutch oven and another 20 minutes at 230°C.

I think I accidentally used 2.5~3g of yeast, which wasn’t ideal since it rushed me a bit in the morning. But hey, it was easy baking with my son and happy mistakes happen.

Now I’m debating whether to start a sourdough starter again… and the fact that I’m even thinking about it probably means I will 😀