Anyway...I decided that I really wanted some bread this weekend. The plan was to make up a batch of dough Saturday night and bake Sunday morning, but we ended up over at EPCOT (see...busy) and it was a bit late when we got home and I really didn't feel up to making the dough. Actually making the dough is not the part that put me off...it is the cleaning up. I am not a fan of the cleaning up so as tired as I was Saturday night it was something that I even wanted to think about.
So first thing Sunday morning I jump in the kitchen and mix up my dough. The problem now is timing. As I have mentioned my recipe calls for an hour overnight proof in the fridge, but I want to cook it the same day. The trick is to find a compromise that gives us some decent flavor and good proofing. I starting by leaving it out on the counter for about an hour. This gave the yeast time to do the bulk of their "lifting". Then we went into the fridge for about 4 hours. This in theory let some flavor develop. Now back on the counter for 45 minutes or so to wake things up. After shaping another hour before going in the oven. I think it could have used a little more time after shaping, but by this time I was ready to eat it and knew that I still had another 20 minutes of baking and at least 45 of cooling...so it went in the oven.
Overall it came out very good. I am pretty happy that I went from start to finish without looking at the recipe and didn't screw anything up. I did double check my ingredient cheat sheet just to make sure the numbers in my head were the same ones written down, but that doesn't really count does it? The only thing that I am still kind of struggling with is getting the shape exactly like I want, so next time I will have to manage my time a bit better and give the shaped loaf more than hour to rise.
