I over-proofed this batch of Country White. I wanted to bring it up to the requisite 62 degrees a little faster than the three hours that it normally takes, so I turned on the oven for several minutes, which was a couple minutes too long because I then had to wait while the oven cooled down again so I could finally put the bowls of bread in to proof. After only a couple hours the boules checked in at 67 degrees. I could tell the bread was overproofed just by touching it—the dough was shaky and trembly, not firmly taut like it should have been. I quickly turned on the oven to pre-heat, tsk-tsking at my carelessness.
There is only one way to remedy this kind of problem, the overproofing problem, and that is to dock the bread with a more shallow cut than normal. I did that, and the bread turned out fine, but you can see in these pictures that the bread looks sallow, washed out, and sick. It doesn’t have the strong, robust, vibrant look of a properly proofed loaf.
But the loaves will still taste pretty good, so it’s not the end of the world.
Washes of pain, my husband making annoying solicitous noises and the big round clock glaring at me from the wall. My gurney ride down the night hall. Finally, at 2:28 a.m., one last burst of maniacal bearing down, my face screwed into a prune, and whoosh. They laid the baby on my belly and in a delirium of relief and amazement I gazed at this new wet, naked creature. After my husband held her a delivery room nurse put her to my breast and right away she latched on, making the staffers crow. Then they trundled her off to the hospital nursery.
My husband gone, in my room down the hall I waited. They’d said I could keep her with me after the first few hours. I was way too exhilarated and wired to sleep. A laboring woman’s groans drifted my way. One nurse after another bustled in to check my blood pressure.
Daylight came, and my breakfast tray, and still I waited.
“How soon am I allowed to have my baby?” I asked, midmorning. The nurse’s answer came too promptly, it seemed to me. “Twenty-four hours,” she replied. I looked at her in alarm. Another more cheerful nurse contradicted, “Oh, no, eight to twelve hours. It all depends.” They both whisked away.
Was there trouble? I recalled how quiet the baby had been at first. Right off, she’d made just a tired little squeak. But then she’d wailed loudly—she’d cried hard. She’d looked perfect. Had something gone wrong?
A snippy nurse brought me pills, tiny red ones. Didn’t they give women pills to dry up their milk? Where was my baby? “What are these pills for?” I blurted.
“To put your tummy back in shape.” The nurse acted in too much of a hurry.
People were whispering out in the hall, and the doctor strode in. He asked how I was feeling. He’ll think I’m some kind of a nut, I thought. But I questioned him anyway.
“Something wrong? No, no, no. Your baby’s in the nursery.” But he was too hearty, reassuring. Wasn’t this how people acted when they lied?
Knowing I might as well face the truth, I persisted. “Can’t I at least see her?” He glanced at that snippy nurse who’d come in with him, and they agreed to find someone to accompany me to the nursery.
Ages passed. I had them trapped. They were plotting, devising some way to further deceive me. Finally, in bounced the cheery nurse: “Come on, dearie, let’s go.”
I padded weakly down the hall behind her and stood at the nursery window. I could see three babies. The one way back in the corner, the nurse said, was mine.
But back in bed again, I counted in my head. One woman had delivered soon after me; I’d heard all her caterwauling. A second woman had birthed a bit later; she occupied the other bed in my room, now. Surely several babies had been born before ours, or a few since. Why hadn’t they brought my baby’s crib up close to the window? They hadn’t wanted me to read the identification tags! They’d shown me somebody else’s baby!
The obstetrician’s office called to say congratulations, but of course they were in on the plot. I scolded myself for worrying, and I kept hoping that what I dreaded hadn’t happened, but the fear clawed and clenched at my heart.
Not until after lunch, around 1:00, did they bring me my firstborn. What an astonishing wee, fuzz-top mite! My soft mewling, nuzzling bundle!
My parents came chugging into the maternity ward a short time later. When I told Mother about my crazy spell, she smiled. “Oh, that’s normal. I went through the same thing.” Really? This, yet! If women typically suffered these private spasms of terror, postpartum, why hadn’t somebody clued me in? Were such fears some big shameful secret?
Cuddling my baby, drinking in her milky, warm sweetness, I was wholly smitten. I’d had no idea, no idea at all, of the intensity of affection I would feel for my infant. My maternal instinct—the tiger ferocity—just shocked me.
I don’t know about you, but my mother taught me to never bump a loaf of bread when it had risen. She showed me how to ever so gently slide the loaf into the oven and ever so gently close the oven door. Any slamming around and the loaf would collapse in upon itself.
But not so with sourdough. (Ha—that rhymes!) Once the dough is all big and poofy, then you get to do some major playing around, flipping it over, pushing it from the board to the oven tile, and even cutting, or docking, the boule. This turns bread-baking from a domesticated, genteel activity into a therapy session for the rebellious and defiant child. Not that I harbor any resentment toward my mother and all the many many instructions she gave me. No, no, certainly not. Though slashing that soft, risen dough does sooth my soul….
Of course you must still be gentle—no poking or pinching, though that is a tempting proposition since the dough feels just like a baby’s butt, or a baby’s marshmallow cheeks (facial ones).
First, dump the loaf out upside down on a bread board (or in my case, a cutting board).
Second, dock it. There are all different cuts, depending on which type of bread you are making. You can create your own cuts, of course—the only goal is to be consistent so that a certain cut always indicates a certain type of bread. I use a razor to dock my bread because the cutting device needs to be, um, razor sharp. Make the cut quickly—a ½ inch deep cut at a 45 degree angle.
Docking the bread is not simply for decoration—it allows the bread to expand properly. If you didn’t dock it, the boule would explode out in one way or another. By cutting the boule, you are telling it where to expand so it does it in an attractive fashion.
I feel powerful and bossy when I slash the dough and then shove it into the oven. The dough collapses quite a bit (maybe I’m too bossy?), but within the first five minutes of being in the hot oven, it rises back to it’s beautiful shape, and then even grows some more.
