Today we got up late - and hungry. Saturday mornings are usually bread-less as we've usually devoured all the bread made during the week by that time. Last night, however, I experimented with preparing the bread dough the night before, using both yeast and sour dough starter. Instead of my usual very energetic kneading of the dough, I simply brought it together and kneaded it very briefly - only until the ingredients were well incorporated. Then I covered the bowl with cling film and left it to rise over night at room temperature (about 23˚C for about 10 hours).
The next day, when I could wrest myself from the bed, I scraped the dough out of the bowl onto a lightly floured surface and turned the oven on high - about 220˚C. Then I divided the dough into eight pieces and 'cloaked' each piece by drawing the edges of each piece into the middle while rotating the ball on the counter. Then I placed each ball on the seam created by the previous treatment (sort of like a 'navel', really!) and allowed them to rest for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, I put two trays in the oven to pre-heat and sprinkled corn meal onto two additional trays to be used as make-shift peels. I flattened some of the balls to form buns and stretched and rolled (very gently) others to form baguettes.
By this time, the oven was ready so I sprayed the insides of it with water to create steam for the crust and popped the dough inside. I left them for 20 minutes while I prepared the eggs and mushrooms.
Then we ate it! It was a nice breakfast...
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