I thought I could make it, but I was wrong.
Using all purpose flour in this sourdough loaf was a disaster. They say the Canadian all purpose and bread flours have similar protein content and many bakers are successful in getting decent loaves with all purpose flour, but today I proved myself that was not the case for me. Bread flour it is!
Dough was fantastic, but as soon as I took it from the proofing basket, it spread and leveled. I was hoping maybe once it is in the oven things would get better. But the loaf did not rise, usual oven spring was not existing, and it took longer (1 hour 15 min at 350F) to get a browned crust (I suspect because it was such a shallow loaf that its crust was further away from the top of the oven, which made it longer to brown), and as a result is as dry and hard as brick.
I will eat it, but honestly use the bread flour if it works better for your loaves.
————————————-
Added after the post: On a second thought, this loaf may as well be just over-proved. The first rise was quite long (around 18 hours) and I wonder if this has something to do with this leveled loaf (aka less gluten structure)… if you have any opinion, please do comment.
I was going to mention over proofing as a possible problem. I almost always use Canadian AP for my SD baking though I don’t get the huge oven spring that I see in breads made with bread flour. I may give that a try this week.
LikeLiked by 1 person
that sounds about right – thank you. perhaps I should have another trial with AP flour
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree. 18 hours room temp is way too much. Now if it had been in the fridge for that time and baked at 450 from the fridge I think results might have been better. Because you are using volume measures I can’t say for sure but it looks like it’s a high hydration so it’s going to splay out unless it’s contained by something (pot, baking pan etc.) I would consider getting a digital weigh scale and begin thinking metric. A cup of AP does not weigh the same as a cup of hard ww.
LikeLiked by 1 person
you may be right about these. dough was not overly sticky but it can nevertheless be affected by the AP flour. I fully agree with the over-proofing
LikeLike