59

There's a reason that bakers start work in the middle of the night, it take a *** of a long time to make "real" bread.

Now that the weather has cooled down (in theory at least as it's very summery today), it's time to start bread making with a leaven/mother. There are no gloriously golden crusted loaves to share with you, just this slow developer. It's now just after 5pm and I started this baby off just before 8am this morning. I would say we have at least another 2 hours before I can bake them.

Reading through it suggests that you do the final 4 hour rise overnight in the fridge (so it becomes 8), but then you need another 2 hours in the morning to bring it up to temperature before baking. I'll try that next I think, because the satisfaction is not the same when it comes out of the oven at 8:30 PM! Anyone with any tips on doing it this way, I'd love to hear.

PS The loaves came out of the oven at 8:30. They are delicious. A 12 hour loaf sure, but absolutely worth it. Dense bouncy crumb, real crunchy in a real sourdough way crust. Really wonderful.