Baking Bouchon - Recipe 71: Sourdough Bread

I have a feeling I'm going to get sick of making bread very soon.  I did an inventory of what I have left to make out of the Bouchon Bakery cookbook and I have just a couple of items from each chapter left... except for the bread chapter where there are at least a half a dozen recipes left.  Sheesh.

I love sourdough bread and making it is not that different from making many of the other breads in this cookbook.

The big difference is that you use a lot more levain than in the other recipes.  Levain is basically a bread starter made from water and flour that is left to sit out for days and is fed with more flour so that it grows - basically it's bacteria.  Somehow it doesn't kill you but the more of it you put in bread the more it tastes sour.  I don't know how.  It's science.

The bread comes together really easy in the stand mixer and using the dough hook to knead it takes all the hard work out of it.  It's left to rise for a few hours, shaped into a round loaf and then rises again.  At that point I transferred it to a flexible cutting board to help me get it into the hot oven but for some reason the sides of it were all saggy like a saggy... something or other. 

The bread baked up beautifully (at least it looks like it did from the top) and the crust was was best one so far - very crusty which I'm aware is not very descriptive but it's the only word I can think of.

Looking at the loaf of bread from the side it looks more like a flying saucer than a loaf of bread which I can only imagine is due to the saggy sides getting some kind of a surgical lift in the oven.

The bread was pretty good but I wanted it to be more sour.  I like to know I'm eating sourdough bread and this one just made me think that I might be eating sourdough bread.  That didn't stop me from eating it and it definitely didn't' stop me from using it to make french toast the following morning.

Enjoy!
Julie