I promised my mother-in-law to bake her some fresh sourdough bread for her birthday. I said it would be delivered on Friday, so of course I need to make it Thursday. But I forgot i would be at my son‘s apartment in Tampa on Thursday and I would be busy most of Thursday! This is a story about traveling sourdough.
So I started the starter in Lakeland on Wednesday afternoon. Then drove with that little bit of starter to Tampa. Then I discovered there was no bread flour at my son’s place. But there was unbleached all-purpose flour, so this will be my first time making sourdough bread with basic flour.
I made the dough, and did the stretch and folds late at night. I let it ferment on the counter overnight. Then early this morning, shaped it and put it in the fridge. No banetton baskets, so using the old colander method.
I am making two small loaves because my mother-in-law can’t eat a large loaf.
I mixed the two loaves separately, and I know I screwed up the amount of flour in one batch. But I didn’t know how much I messed it up, so I added a little bit more flour. But based on the stickiness and looseness of that batch, I think I’m still under for the amount of flour.
Anyway, I will have to take the two bowls of dough out of the fridge and drive them back to Lakeland to put in the fridge again before baking it early tomorrow morning!!
Basically, this is all a giant experiment of different flour, sticky dough, super long fermentation time, and moving the stages of the bread from one house to another twice! Because I promised my mother-in-law for her birthday.
