WHITE FARMHOUSE TIN LOAF

A white tin loaf made the sourdough way, presented as "the easiest loaf in the world" by the Guardian.

I made the sponge last night:

• 225ml warm water
• 1 teaspoon (sachet) easyblend yeast
• 175g strong white bread flour (used Allinson's)

The mixture started off quite vigorously and smells good. It stood from last night until I got home from work this afternoon.

added the dough:

• 175g strong white bread flour
• 25g butter (the recipe said unsalted butter and a level teaspoon of salt, and I left the salt out as I used salted butter)

At this point the dough looks a bit runny and watery, certainly not something kneadable, so I'm just moving it around the bowl a bit. Possibly the scales were faulty and I have not added enough flour... (sprinkled the dough with extra flour prior to second knead). I really did not expect this to work, it hardly rose at all in the bowl, -it seemed to take ages to rise when in the tin, and when I cut the top it sank again, but it has produced a tasty bread with excellent texture. I had to add flour at each knead and for the final roll out, so I'm assuming the weights were wrong.


EDIT: I've made this loaf three times now; the third time I could only leave the sponge for a few hours rather than overnight and half the next day. As a result it was much drier, but either way, adding a little flour during the kneads doesn't seem to hurt any - we LOVE this bread, the taste and the texture are superb!