Paul Stanley

Here's how I learned it when I shared a flat with two Italians. It sounds very like the Hazan and Batali recipes ... Slice a clove or two of garlic in half. Put a little olive oil (couple of T) in a pan, add garlic and gently heat. When garlic goes golden, remove it (don't whatever you do let it burn). Add a large can of decent crushed tomatoes, or crush down some whole ones. Pop in a small peeled onion, whole, and a stem of basil if you have one, and a pinch of salt. Bring it to a gentle simmer, then turn it right down. Put a lid on, but leaving it just ajar, so that you are evaporating only a little water. Let it cook very gently for at least an hour, preferably longer, checking it from time to time. If it gets thick and dry, add some water. You're aiming for a sauce that is not too thick--not pasty at all. It might seem that nothing can happen to a can of tomatoes in the course of an hour, but it really affects both flavor and texture. When it's done, remove the now sloppy onion and basil and discard it. If you need to keep it for a day or two, put it in jars in the fridge and put a little olive oil on top. (Is that a botulism risk? Well, we used to do it anyway and we lived!) Heresy as it may sound, you may find that if your tomatoes are very acid they need a tiny pinch of sugar. But the aim is not to produce any strong flavors beyond the tomato. Don't add too much garlic, or loads of pepper, or any chili or what have you. This is sufficiently interesting to eat on its own if you want to (we used to eat it at least once a day) though it's nice then to add a little olive oil or butter (your choice) just as you are about to serve. You will taste either of them much better if they are added that way rather than cooked into the sauce. It's also, however, mild/non-assertive enough to use on pizza or as the base for other sauces.

I certainly use it, directly or indirectly, from time to time, as a seasoning, especially to correct acid balance (tiny bit in tomato sauce sometimes, e.g.) or to bring out sweetness in something naturally sweetish (pinch in with carrots if they're not great). For most of those uses I would rather have refined white sugar. Other ways of getting some sugar in (honey, sweet wine, balsamic vinegar, orange juice) add positive flavours of their own which I may not necessarily want.

This is an interesting analogy, but not quite precise, I think. In cooking, wine is usually pretty massively transformed by cooking. The rule there is really not to use an undrinkable wine, but I think the consensus would probably be that beyond that there is really not much mileage in upping the quality. You are largely trying to avoid introducing positively nasty flavours. (And in fact, I'm told, the transformation can sometimes be so significant that you can use an undrinkable wine for cooking (e.g., I understand that a corked wine is OK for cooking, because the off tastes are eliminated; but I've never tried it). Cocktails are different, because there is less transformation. There nevertheless comes a point where what (presumably) makes the "better" stuff better will be overwhelmed by less expensive ingredients or strongly assertive flavours. I'm afraid it wouldn't occur to me to use really excellent brandy for a sidecar, much as I love sidecars; perhaps I'm just mean. But it seems to me that whatever you do about the brandy and the cointreau, the lemon juice is going to win in the end. Conversely, with a martini or a manhattan, there's more room for manoeuvre. But anything that has significant quantities of fruit juices, sugar (in whatever form), or ... if you must ... cream, is going to hit the point of no return relatively quickly, I would think. The crucial thing to me seems to be balance. You have to look at all the ingredients, and keep them balanced. Not much point in using a really expensive vermouth for a manhattan if you are going to make it with some mouthwash whisky. And a question. What about temperature? Cocktails are usually cold. Often very cold. Generally speaking one thinks of the finer characteristics of many spirits (cognac, single malts etc) as being depressed by extreme cold. I would not generally want to drink a fine cognac or single malt on the rocks, even neat. That might be another reason to suppose that cocktails would not be a very sensible way to showcase the characteristics of the finest spirits.

It seems to me almost of the essence of "typical home cooking" that it does not use a book. I cook most days. Over the course of a week, I suppose I cook probably 6 or 7 meals. It would be an unusual week when I actually opened a book more than once. But that does not mean that the books are not there in the background. The recipes came from somewhere, to start with, and that was often a book. To take an example, this past week: Last Saturday: Meatballs and pasta. No book used. In the background: recipe for meatballs from Marcella Hazan. (But I sometimes make meatballs using a recipe I learned from my mother, which is quite different.) Sunday: Carbonnade. No book used. In the background: recipe from Anne Wilan's French Provincial Cooking. Monday: Pasta vodka. No book used. Recipe taught to me by some Italian friends about 15 years ago. Greek(ish) salad, just sort of constructed from eating it. Tuesday: Risotto, with red wine and sausages. No book used. Recipe owes its origins to a sort of amalgamation of Jamie Oliver and Marcella Hazan. Wednesday: My boyfriend cooked a pasta sauce with bacon and olives, which I think he half invented himself and half got from a Jamie Oliver recipe on the internet. (Wherever it came from it was good.) Thursday: Ate out. Friday: Soft tacos for the kids. No book, just sort of invented on the hoof. Chocolate fondue (demanded by the kids) ditto. Today: Macaroni and cheese. No book. Basic recipe my mother's, but varied in that I use gruyere as well as cheddar, and much more mustard and cayenne than she does. Loosely based on the best macaroni and cheese I ever ate (at Soho Grand hotel in New York, years ago). So in a whole week of what I at least regard as typical home cooking (i.e., quick, unfancy, mixture of dishes from all sorts of places originally, all probably rather "nativised"), not a single book actually opened, but several there in the background. Two things I would add: (1) I've generally (with a few exceptions) found "restaurant" based books pretty useless for ordinary home cooking; they assume a different programme of preparation than the home cook wants. (2) There are a huge number of "typical" dishes home cooks, at least in the UK, actually cook that you won't really find in any book at all!

This is a very interesting discussion. It seems to me that one can look at this sort of question in a variety of ways. (To make my position clear, I speak as a British person with, for reasons of personal history, quite a lot of experience of American food, mostly from the NE; I have very little experience of southern food.) (1) The "shape of the meal". For me, differences in food culture are as much shaped by how we eat as by what we eat. Meals in France have a certain shape, those in Italy a different shape, etc. etc. Of course there is variation in this within any culture too--a restaurant meal or dinner party is not the same as a family supper. The main characteristics of the American meal seem to me to be the following: (a) A distinct "main" course (compare, eg, Italy), (b) the main course features a "main" dish, which will normally include meat or fish, and "sides", which will usually include some sort of carbohydrate, © bread is not important, much less essential, to most meals (d) apart from the "main" course, the "secondary" course is a sweet course, (e) the salad (if served) is likely to be served as an "appetizer". This pattern seems to me to be British/Northern European in origin. The patterns in other countries (eg France or Italy, let alone somewhere like China) are somewhat different in each of these points. (2) Certain characteristic dishes: chilli, barbecue, meatloaf, chowder, burgers, etc etc. Plenty has been said about these already. Certain characteristic ingredients: maple syrup, blueberries, corn, etc. Ditto. (3) A preference for a certain flavour profile, which I would describe as (on the whole) a preference for simple strong tastes (one reason why a Frenchman, say, would be likely to find American food rather "crude"). Whatever flavour food has, Americans like it to have a lot of that flavour--sweet food tends to be really very sweet (to UK tastes, for instance, American cakes are "too sweet", and American ice-cream is very sweet compared to Italian), strongly flavoured ingredients like cheese, bacon and tomato tend to be used quite extensively (compare an American pizza to an Italian one). And whatever is used tends to be used liberally. An American who decides to use garlic is likely to want to use a lot of garlic--not for him/her the subtle whisper that would satisfy a French or Northern Italian cook. American food rarely works by building up a subtle mixture of individually undetectable flavours. (4) A particular liking for a few ingredients of flavour combinations. Quite a lot of sweet/sour (and savoury/sour) combinations (especially in condiments, but not only there). Very liberal use of cinnamon and vanilla. A particular dislike/absence of others (e.g., relatively little liking for bitter flavours). (5) A relative emphasis on the size of the portion. This is not meant to be the usual complaint about "fat" americans; but I think it is true that to the American diner, a fairly large portion size shows "generosity" in the right sense. The good host leaves his or her diners sated, with food to spare.

Well, it's certainly not about air. Choux pastry rises through the action of steam, not air. Your proportions look about right to me (though I use weights not cups), though I've never used milk, just water. So far as consistency is concerned, you want to get to something that is pretty soft; it should just be glossy, and about to fall from a spoon, and just thick enough to hold its shape when piped. My guess would be that your dough is too thick, rather than too thin. Maybe the bread flour absorbs too much water? Try it with AP instead? Or a little more egg? Could you be boiling the milk/water/butter mixture too long, so that it evaporates? The only other thing that strikes me is that your oven temperature is a little higher than I would usually reckon on (I'd start at 200C = 400F). I suppose this could mean your shell was "setting" before you had achieved the maximum possible volume. You could experiment with a slightly lower starting temperature, or add some steam to the oven at first to keep the atmosphere nice and humid and get the maximum possible expansion before the crust hardens. The breadmaking trick of pouring a bit of water into a hot pan preheated with the oven could work. One other thing: don't forget the salt! It's pretty tasteless without a little. So, I would try: (1) making the dough a little softer/less elastic (maybe AP flour, maybe a bit more egg, maybe even a tablespoon more water); (2) slightly lower oven temperature to start and/or get some steam into the oven at first.

I'm not sure the Tuscan bread is saltless for such a specialised reason. I was in Umbria (next door to Tuscany) this summer, and almost all the bread was saltless. It just seems to be the standard/preferred "everyday" bread in that part of the world. It's the basic bread you will find at the bakers, on the supermarket shelves, on your table at an ordinary restaurant. I wasn't that keen, but did find that it improved somewhat as one got used to it. My general impression (may be wrong) is that most Italian bread has less salt than we are used to in England, or that one would expect in France, say ... though completely saltless bread seems to be a Tuscan/Umbrian thing.

Thanks for the advice. Sounds like it was behaving as expected: at any rate, I did it in a heavy pan and it did toast and it didn't burn, so ... I was just surprised that it didn't take longer than it did.

As the roux experts are here, may I ask a question? Last weekend I made (for the first time in my life) a dark roux for a gumbo, following the instructions at the start of the gumbo thread. Apart from the usual glitches with making something new for the first time, all went well, and the end result was devoured. But ... I was puzzled when making the roux. I used 1/3 cup each of groundnut oil and plain (i.e. all purpose--I am in England) flour. I have a gas stove, not super powerful or anything, and used a medium flame. I began to get some significant color in the roux rather more quickly than I expected (after maybe 10 to 15 minutes). I began to worry it was going to burn, and actually turned the heat down slightly. After a little under 20 minutes, there was a distinct change in texture (it went sort of fluffy, and more sticky). I stirred religiously and watched the heat carefully. I had it the color of dark milk chocolate at about 20 to 25 minutes, at which point I added the trinity etc. Now, I expect that with more experience I could take it a little darker than I did--but not a huge amount. And I'm certain that it was not burned: the flavor it contributed was a slightly bitter toastiness, which I'm assuming is along the right lines. But: what puzzled me was that the time taken was not nearly as long as I was expecting. Was this just because I had the heat too high (and got lucky with not burning it)? Or did I make it insufficiently dark? Since I don't think I've eaten gumbo more than once in my life, it's very hard to known where I should be heading!

Well, I guess everyone's different, but I usually use 1/3 lard 2/3 butter by weight, give or take. So if I am making pastry with 12 oz flour, I'll have 4 oz butter and 2 oz lard. I guess for a savoury piecrust you could increase the lard somewhat. I'd start by trying 1/3 lard, and then maybe try increasing it to 1/2 or even more until you find what you like. One other point to remember. If you are used to using salted butter, you need to remember to add a bit more salt than you normally would to the flour to make up for the lack of salt in the lard. Undersalted pastry is dull, I think.

Having done this only once, I can't claim to be any sort of expert. But I can describe my experience. I think mine took about 7 days until I baked with it; it worked fine then, though I kept feeding it for a week or so longer before putting it in the fridge. It should be quite clear once you have some action going on: my recollection is that this was around day 3 or 4. By about day 5 it was clearly and strongly active, and looking as it should. Then, I guess a few more days to "strengthen" it and get it really happy. The worst that can happen is that you bake too soon and get one or two bad/slow batches, I think. So long as you keep some of the starter back and continue to feed, which is what you will be doing anyway, you can always try again a few days later.

Mine has had moments of smelling of nail-polish remover, but seemed OK nonetheless. I think I read somewhere that it had to do with being "under-fed", and gave it a few good meals. It recovered, and I baked with it, and lived to tell the tale. Did I do wrong? On the temperature issue, I did mine at room temperature, and it got going fine and reasonably swiftly.

Well, I made futronic's "basic" version of cantucci, exactly as directed (except I had a lemon around so I grated the rind in too, which worked nicely). They're very good, and could easily be varied (hazlenuts, anise, orange, pisatchios etc) if one were minded to do so ... though my recollection of these in Italy is that they are pretty much always almond and plain almond at that: I felt treacherous even adding the lemon! Proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating ... and between us my boyfriend and I have more than half finished the batch. They dunk beautifully.

Mackerel fillets, roasted skin side down in a hot oven, then slicked generously with good olive oil and sprinkled with finely chopped garlic and smoked paprika. Serve with a wedge of lemon. Think this came from the Moro cookbook. Very simple and nicely cuts the oiliness of the fish.

I don't think there's anything peculiar in wanting to know how to make mashed potatoes. They were one of the first things I learned to make as a child. About eight or nine, and fed up with (a) my mother's approach which involved mashing with a fork so that there were loads of lumps and then putting in too much milk so that it was a weird mixture of glue and ... bits and (b) my grandmother's approach which involved the use of margarine. So I learned to make them myself. Yet for all that experience of making mashed potatoes, they are such temperamental things! For such a simple dish, so much can go wrong. If the potatoes are too new or too waxy, you can't get fluffy mash, but only a sort of gummy paste (a puree, maybe, but not mash). If the potatoes get too wet when they are cooking, then it's watery. If the potatoes are at that nasty sweet stage they sometimes get to late in the season when they've been stored for too long, it's no good. So really good mashed potatoes are partly down to the season and luck, whatever you do. You have to have the right sort of potatoes: for me, fairly floury maincrop potatoes that are not so floury they disintegrate when cooking. You have to cook them just right: if they are not done enough, you will get lumps. If they are over-cooked, you will get grey watery goop. You have to dry them in the pan before you mash them. Then you have to mash them evenly and incorporate just the right amount of butter and milk, which depends on the potato. The only things I am sure about: plenty of pepper, plenty of butter, the milk should be hot, dry the potatoes off well after draining them, let them stand for a minute or so after adding the milk so that it absorbs properly. The rest can hardly be taught, it can only be learned, and so much depends on individual taste.

That looks really wonderful. I've found the formula very good, though the one time I wasn't happy was when I retarded overnight in the fridge and baked without allowing adequate time for the dough to get active again, and it was definitely under-risen. Yours looks fantastic. On the parchment question, I'd say same old familiar story. It's certainly better (anyway, it can't be worse) not to have parchment if you can avoid it, just like it's better to go straight onto a stone in a hot oven. BUT it's surely better to have parchment than to have problems with loaves sticking and tearing when they go into the oven. If there's one thing guaranteed to cause poor rising, it's messing up the dough as it goes in. So I'd say for beginners it's got to be better to use parchment until you get used to the method.

Stone If you do use a stone make sure to give your oven plenty of extra time to come to heat, with the stone properly heated. They don't do their job unless they are really hot. Allow as long as an hour. A properly heated stone will help improve the oven spring and crust of the bread. The only trouble with it is that it means sliding loaves into a hot oven at a time when they are most sensitive to poor handling. You may need some practice. There is no shame at all in keeping them on a sheet of parchment to prevent sticking, sliding loaf and parchment both into the oven and onto the stone. Baskets Distinguish two different stages: (a) bulk fermentation (= first rise), where the dough is left to allow the yeast to get working on it as a single mass. You don't use baskets at this stage: a bowl is good. (b) proofing after shaping (= second rise). This is where the baskets come in. What they do is make sure that quite soft dough does not spread too much while it is rising, making for better shaped bread. You can buy "proper" baskets for this, some are baskets lined with linen. Some are made of thicker (willow?) reeds bent round, which makes for a nice shape. I don't know whether in professional practice these are lined ... I think not. Or you can improvise with: (a) any old cheap basket which is roughly the right shape or (b) a bowl that is roughly the right shape. The baskets work better, because they allow the dough to breathe, which helps it form a soft skin which in turn makes for easier handling, less sticking and a better shape. Dough that sweats and then sticks to everything while you are trying to put it in the oven is a problem: you can lose a lot of volume if that happens. So look for some little baskets: houseware stores or (surprisingly) flower shops which use the baskets for little displays are possible sources. Whether improvising with a basket or a bowl, the method is similar. Take a smooth cloth (preferably linen, but cotton is fine too) and rub it really well with plenty of flour. It is said that rice or rye flour will be less inclined to cause sticking than wheat flour, because the lower/different gluten content prevents it forming a paste; but I have never had trouble in baskets with wheat flour. Don't just "dust" the cloth. Dredge it heavily. Work it in. This should prevent sticking. Once you have done this, it is a good idea to keep the cloth for that purpose. It sort of "seasons". Wash it only if you have had a sticking accident. Once the dough is in the basket, keep it covered with another cloth while it rises. Dough goes into the basket upside down (i.e., the side that has the "seam" from shaping is on top, and becomes the bottom of the finished loaf). When you come to remove it from the basket, be very gentle. Don't just plop it like a jelly onto a peel, or it will lose volume. I usually transfer it gently onto a well-floured hand (inverting the basket) and then onto the peel.

The yoof market is very fickle. When I was at university (15 years ago!) we drank quite a lot of scotch, which was thought "sophisticated". Mostly lighter/non iodine styles of single malt: Glenfiddich, Bushmills sm (OK, Irish but ...), Highland Park when we could afford it, blends like J&B. On the other hand, we drank remarkably little vodka (and then only as an alcohol-additive to disgusting concoctions such as vodka, peach schnapps and lemonade, or vodka, oj and sparkling-white-wine). That was probably before the "rage" for single malts, coinciding as it did with a certain fetishism of the pipe-and-slippers image. Think rugged masculinity, martinis, cigar bars, etc. Solid bourgeois virtues. Ugh. The pendulum swings naturally enough as each generation defines itself against the last. The moisturised metrosexual naturally eschews anything suggestive of dead birds plopping into rain-soaked heather. The cry goes out for "clean" spirits (fancy vodka in fragile frosted bottles), lemony-herby drinks, fruit. Scotch probably enjoyed a rather artificial boom-time, peaking in the mid-late 1990s. It is bound to retreat. It will bounce back again. That's the thing with drink fashions: german riesling, gives way to generic-french-white, gives way to chardonnay, gives way to pinot grigio, gives way to sauvignon and now ... the smart money's drinking German again (not that AWFUL stuff we drank in the 70s of course, O no, this is a sophisticated and under-appreciated drink of miraculous sophistication). Scotch to alcopops to vodka to bourbon to ... The young drinker chooses drinks largely because s/he likes the image the drink conjures up. But the trick inevitably stops working when observations of the many other people drinking X lead one to suspect that X is drunk not just by the chic, but by the freak. And so one must move on. That's fashion. The only real oddity about it is that with each swing of the pendulum, we find that we "really prefer" the drink-of-the-moment, just as I "really prefer" my straight-cut jeans to the flared ones I "really preferred" a few years ago. People don't so much drink what they like as learn to like what they drink. I doubt campaigns can influence it much: they are too unsubtle, and they disregard the entirely natural rhythm of the way this works.

Desiderio, those look very nice indeed. As far as crust colour is concerned, I think that's partly a matter of taste. I rather like a deeply coloured crust--brown not golden--on the edge of burned, especially with sourdough, because I think the bitter caramel taste goes nicely with the bread. I think a lot of commercially produced bread is definitely under-browned. (That said, I overbaked a couple today by any standards ... ) I have two questions: 1. What part does shape play in determining texture. I'm still struck by the fact that Desiderio's bread has a more open texture in the top half of the loaf than the bottom. Is one possibility that the dough is quite wet, and that the sheer weight of that dough is sort of "holding down" the bottom. I can't remember what hydration Desiderio is using, but have a recollection that it's quite high. Is the texture different/more even if you shape into, say, a baton or a baguette rather than a boule? Or as smaller boules? What difference do you get if you slightly reduce the hydration to stiffen the dough (though you would risk losing those big air-pockets which I'm guessing you want). My unscientific hunch is that there is an effect. I think I get more total baked volume for a given weight of dough when it is shaped in smaller loaves. Of course, there are other considerations. But it may be that if you want "big" bread you need a slightly stiffer dough. Very open-textured loaves tend to be "low" shapes (think baguettes, ciabbata, focaccia ...). 2. Glennbech was complaining up thread about over-moist crumb (though it looked just fine to me). As I understand it, this is unlikely to be the result of underbaking: the starch is clearly setting, so the loaf is baked. Apparently most water is lost not in the oven but while the loaf is cooling. Moreover, even after it has cooled fully, the texture of the crumb changes over time and it becomes firmer and drier (the beginning of the process which carried to its conclusion is stale bread, but within a certain range is desirable). This is not just evaporation: it's a chemical process taking place within the structure of the loaf. I don't think you can judge the moistness fairly until the bread has had several hours to cool. Again, FWIW, my experience is that sourdough is at its peak about 12 to 24 hours after it has come out of the oven. My own problem at the moment seems to be with inconsistent starters. Perhaps its the weather, but I'm finding my starter varies a lot in its potency from batch to batch, though I make it the same way each time (or think I do). It went really sluggish last weekend, and I managed to produce some nastyish under-risen loaves as a result when I lost patience with the wretched stuff and baked too soon. This weekend it's rocking. (I also tried Glennbech's "use the oven floor as a hearth" method with good results.) I guess the trouble with sourdough is that the price you pay for doing things "naturally" is a loss of predictability. But then I never found commercial yeast that predictable either!

I'm afraid I've no pointers to online sources of baskets: I don't know if Dan Lepard's site might help for proper bannetons, though they are quite expensive I believe. But, as I say, I improvised with a cheap basket originally intended for serving bread, which I line with a cloth. I've also heard a recommendation to try flower shops, because little baskets are sometimes used to present floral displays in.

Glennbech: One comment you made set a bell ringing with me--that you are using a bowl as a couche. I have found that this tends to be a problem, because it makes the surface of the dough wet, with the result that it tends to stick to the cloth. I have had much better success using a basket: the dough does not stick so easily, and the surface remains drier. On one occasion, I made two loaves from identical dough, one in a bowl and one in a basket. The one in the basket was perfect. The one in the bowl had a clammy surface and stuck to the cloth, and was very hard to slash, with the inevitable results your pictures demonstrate. This makes sense--the basket can "breathe" in a way the bowl cannot. In a bowl there's nowhere for the moisture at the surface to go, so it remains on the surface or (worse) mixes with the flour on the couche to form a sticky paste. I have never had a sticking problem with the basket, even though I use only ordinary flour. I think it is worth getting hold of some baskets. I don't use "proper" bannetons: mine are a couple of very cheap (£1.50) bread baskets I got from a household goods store, and chopped off their handles! Edited to add: And your second successful loaf of yesterday is absolutely wonderful looking!

BTW, Tracey, that bread looks great, and the loaf you have cut doesn't look soggy or underbaked at all. Lovely.

I'm glad you tried that method. It is sort of magic isn't it? After years reckoning that I had to knead and knead to get decent bread, the revelation that it was as much time as kneading that matters has been considerable. I find the process of gently kneading and then turning on an oiled surface quite helpful, and the resulting dough rather easier to handle. As to holes, moist crumb etc etc. I think one has to let the holes take care of themselves! I tend to get bread with a few large holes, but not all that many, which is fine by me. Overall texture of the crumb is more important. Also, I do want an "even" crumb, if you see what I mean: large and small holes, but all through the loaf, not a tight texture at the bottom and huge holes at the top. That tends to come I think from trying to use a wet dough to make shapes (boules, batons) it can't support: wet doughs demand "flatter" shapes (think ciabatta and focaccia). On crust, I find that leaving the bread in the oven for about 5 to 10 minutes after it is cooked (with the oven turned off) improves the crust. But I've never got in my domestic oven a crust of the quality that comes out of a "proper" bread oven, and I suspect one just has to live with that. So far as the moistness of the crumb is concerned, I think it is partly a question of the baking (must bake enough ... which usually means a little longer than you think you need), partly a question of the adequacy of the proofing (under proofed bread tends to seem a bit soggy because it is so dense), and partly maybe a question of time after baking. The quality of the crumb and the taste improves over a few hours after baking, I think. Not sure about the chemistry of that, but presumably the same process as staling. To some degree it is desirable. For me the "perfect" window for sourdough is between 6 hours and 24 hours after the bread came out of the oven. Sourdough seems to get sourer over that time as well. And naturally raised breads can have quite a moist crumb anyway, often. Poilane's bread, for instance, has just that moist texture. I don't think it is undesirable!

Ugh. Bread dough is like a baby: it insists on following its own timetable. The other night I mixed dough at midnight, then got up at 4.00am to shape it before going back to sleep, then baked at 7.00! Fresh bread for lunch ... but slightly crazy.

A number of comments: 1. Why bulk fermentation Some breads are not bulk fermented. As I understand it, it serves three functions. (a) The longer fermentation allows more time for some of the developments other than rising, including bacterial action, which affect the taste of the loaf. (b) The double fermentation affects the texture of the bread. (c.) The first rising allows the yeast to become highly active, allowing for a faster proofing, which makes shaping easier. 2. Your times Compared to the approach I use (which is Lepard's) your bulk rising and proofing times seem very short. Compared to your 1 hour rise, I allow 4 hours. Compared to your 1 hour proof, mine takes around 3 hours to approximately double in bulk. The key is to see the approximate doubling though, not the time. I use much less starter than you: for me only about 15% of the flour is in the starter. 3. Your ovenspring Lack of ovenspring could be from a variety of factors. It seems very unlikely that a 1 hour proof is overproofing (but are you seeing an approximate doubling?). And if the dough is bursting out then you are getting oven-spring. My guess is that you are under-proofing, and then baking at a time when crust formation prevents further rising and then you kill the yeast. The key I think is to go by the amount the dough has risen, not the time. I do add some steam in the form of water in a pan in the oven--about a cup, which evaporates about 10 minutes after the loaf goes in. I don't know truly whether that makes any difference. 4. Pancake effect To some degree this is inevitable. Three things help for me. The first is very careful shaping of the loaf. You have to make sure that there is good tension in the surface, which holds everything in place. The loaf after shaping needs to be nice and tight. The second is to use a proofing basket, but I think you are doing that. The third is to cover the proofing loaf with a cloth, not plastic. I think a little drying of the surface (not too much) is better than a very damp surface, which is very hard to handle later. Over-handling when the loaf is moving from proofing basket to the oven can be a problem with shape. You need to get the hang of moving very fast but very gently when transferring the proofed loaf to the oven. I have found that placing the loaf on a cold tray and thence into the oven works better for me than using a peel, because my "peel technique" is poor, and the damage I do to the loaf transferring it twice (basket to peel, peel to hot oven) is greater than the additional benefit I get from putting it onto a hot surface. Another baking compromise, to make up for my poor technique!