I know that the blog's been a little bread-heavy lately, but I already lost a significant amount of time in taking these pictures, so now you're going to lose an equally-significant amount of your life reading about them.
I had a difficult time making any good sourdough bread for quite a while (examine the two loaves below on the right). During that period I enjoyed some nice sourdough pancakes and quite a few pizza crusts. The loaves of bread were elusive however. I finally decided to put the jar of sourdough in the corner of the fridge for a time-out until it learned its lesson.
Frustrated, I moved on to some other nice recipes, such a slightly-sweet swedish rye bread (loaves on the left). I baked those loaves mostly just to teach the jar of sourdough that it could be done.
After a sufficient break I decided to try the sourdough again. This time I approached it with some changes. First, I added a significant amount of yeast. I know that a long rise leads to better taste, but I was surprised how long it would take to rise in the past. Sometimes overnight wasn't even enough. I also did away with the recipes, since those clearly weren't working. Below is the resulting loaf. It's a little uneven and didn't rise quite as much as I'd hoped, but at least it's edible this time.
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