Today’s bread was made with Whole Wheat sourdough starter (instead of Whole Rye) and Unbleached All-Purpose flour because I ran out of other flours. I did add twice as much sourdough starter and had to use additional flour, EVOO and butter because I couldn’t handle the slack dough that kept collapsing and sticking. Folded in Pepitos at the end (Don’t know why/how they all ended up to the side of the loaf….)
I cold proofed in banneton and used cornmeal in bottom of the parchment lined loaf pan, and put a broiler pan bottom on top as lid to keep in the steam while baking for a “sandwich loaf” shape.
…I have two “bread” knives. One is a walnut-handled Chicago Cutlery bread knife — pretty expensive when I bought it … but I had so much trouble trying to cut these sourdough breads I started baking — it couldn’t handle the bottom crust. (Bread loaf standing on one side in the proper manner) And in the process of pushing and trying to cut through, I kept on ripping off bits and pieces of the crust, or (when loaf was on its bottom) squashing the loaf while sawing away to try to get through the tough crust.
I was really frustrated until I saw a “Jack” video in which he pointed out the importance of the curved edge of HIS serrated bread knife for cutting through the crust all the way to the cutting board.
… And I said “Hey, I have a knife that shape!”. And it DOES work very well to cut the breads without squishing, and sharp enough to let me hand-cut thinner slices that are about the thickness of store bread slices.
This Cutco black plastic handled knife wasn’t all that expensive. Hubby bought it when he was marine fishing a lot and wanted a big/long knife — from son of a work colleague when he was in school and fund-raising (class graduation trip? band trip?) — but it turned out that the serrated blade wasn’t delicate enough and shredding the fish (he replaced it with a very sharp and easy to sharpen sushi knife).
…Don’t worry, we got our groceries today and restocked with more bread flour as well as whole wheat, and whole spelt, and have whole white wheat on order….