They weren’t lying about the weather today! Whew, nasty New York, still not humid but nasty! I revived my starters and made up a classic levain recipe from Nancy Silverton’s La Brea book yesterday morning before rushing to work. I didn’t follow rule one, schedule; in fact I gave the bread maybe something like 45 minutes of bulk fermentation and plop! Into the fridge!
Hours passed as we toiled in the kitchen at work, hopped on my bike and huffed it home over the humid layers that passed me by over the fifty-ninth street bridge, passing other cyclist for one reason only, to take that loaf out of the retarding stage!
When I finally got home I happily found the loaf had some movement in the cool confines of my fridge. I wasted no time and gave it a few folds to warm and invigorate it so it would be ready a few hours later for baking, so one would think. Right? Wrong! Instead I went to shower clean and slightly invigorated myself I gave the dough another fold, some rest a little CNN and then back to shaping for the banneton! By that point I wasn’t sure who was more tired me or the loaf, I lay in bed thinking only to shut my eye’s around midnight; when next you know I wake up at 2:00 am and look at a rising loaf, quickly I shove it back in the fridge for a nap! Fast forward next day 3:30 pm exhausted and having just raced madly again over the east river back to my home in scorching heat I decided to use the cold oven method so recently hailed by many a home baker from London to Malaysia! My better half said no but the devils said do it! I did it and well some interesting things, first I put cold dough in oven and blasted the gas, gave some silly sprays of water and crossed my fingers

Some observations (Oh now he gets to observe his mess!)

Taste: Wheaty and somewhat has a ……uh oh sounds like a wine taster!

Shape: Sort of messy, probably cold on cold doesn’t help, will try warming up bread first?

Crumb: Tight. but light and moist, not so much oven spring too!

Overall: It’s good when your just messing around, I will stay with the pre-heated oven from now on,can’t say I didn’t try though!