At the start of this week I was feeling baking-confident and tried baking two loaves of bread at 80% hydration (800g of water to 1000g of flour, I typically go for 75%). It didn’t go well. The bread was hard to shape and I went out for the afternoon and left the dough bulk rising far longer than planned. Shaping the loaves proved to be difficult and when it came to baking, the dough had stuck awkwardly to the baskets - something I thought I’d learnt to avoid.

To make up for this, on Thursday, I made two loaves at 60% hydration to see how well I could shape them. I was delighted with the results.

The bread cut easily and rose delightfully in the oven. I dusted them with rice flour prior to scoring in order to accentuate the scores.

As much as I enjoyed its shape, I must say that I prefer the flavour of my higher hydration loaves. So, today I’ve got another 75% hydration dough rising, I’m keen to shape it just as well.

As for the 60 percent well shapen loaf however, this morning I turned it into french toast using the recipe in Tartine Bread. It was incredible.