Brer Jeremy and the Dough Baby

A sourdough, which had been doing its thing all night, looked just fine this morning. So I went to punch it down, generally a satisfactional kind of thing to do. It grabbed my knuckles and refused to let go. And this was a 50% dough, which should be reasonably stiff. Something -- most likely the heat -- had prompted my little microbe friends to generate a lot more liquid than usual. I confess I panicked a bit and reached for the flour bag, and it took quite a lot extra to get to the point where I could shape the mess at least a bit and plop it into the tin. I know what I should have done; I should have done the push-turn-fold thing, which generally results in a workable mass that gives a good open loaf. (And in proving that to myself, I thought I had found another interesting blog, except that it has been dead for about a year now. Pity.) But that requires three hours, and I need a loaf in the oven by 11 to serve for lunch at 1. So I went with panic, and the result was very tasty, even though it’s structure left a little to be desired. I’ll try again tomorrow.