Baking Sourdough Bread
Equipment needed for the actual baking (finally) of the Tartine Bread Country Bread:
- Cast iron combo cooker or dutch oven
- Very thick oven mitts or hot pads (seriously. THESE PANS ARE HOT. DO NOT TOUCH THEM WITHOUT SERIOUS HEAT PROTECTION OR YOU WILL BURN YOURSELF INTO PAINFUL KINDS OF PAIN)
- Leftover rice flour/wheat flour mix
- Clean kitchen shears or a razor
- A place to cool your bread
You’ve let your bread rise at a slowed rate in the fridge for 10ish (and up to 12) hours, so that means you’re ready to score and bake it. Pull one of the dough balls out of the fridge and lightly sprinkle it with with some of the remaining rice flour mixture from yesterday. Place your cast iron cooker (both pieces) in the oven and heat it to 500°F. I have a thermometer in my oven, so I know that when my oven says pre-heating is over, it’s lying. Let the oven (and the cast iron cooker) heat for 20 minutes before you move on to the next step, even if your oven tells you it’s ready earlier.
Scoring dough for people who are terrible at scoring dough
Using very thick oven mitts, pull the shallow piece (skillet) only of the cast iron cooker out of the oven and place it on your stove. Invert the dough into the skillet. Now is the time to score your loaf. I am also terrible at this. A lame (a scoring tool that literally translates to “blade”) or straight razor is the tool of choice for experienced bakers, but I always end up butchering the surface with a straight razor, so I usually use kitchen shears to snip 4 shallow cuts, one on each “side” of the circular loaf. As you can see, I don’t do either method particularly well, but man, are these breads beautiful. You have two loaves to play with, so you can try a different way with each. Scoring is really important because it lets the bread “vent.” If you don’t score, your loaf won’t bake up beautifully and you may get a loaf that cracks a big ol’ crater somewhere else. Work quickly so that you can get that hot pan and bread back in the oven ASAP.