Every so often I get the bright idea that I can make bread with my sourdough even when it is past its prime or hasn’t achieved that peak maturity after a feed. If you follow my posts on bread, there is a chance you will notice my moniker, the “lazy baker.” Though I aim to improve my baking skills with stalwart techniques and methods, I’m either too lazy or just get home from a long work shift but push through, still wanting my pain quotidian for breakfast the next day!  So I jumped at a formula from fellow baker, Flo Makanai, who has a hurry-up bread making method called 1.2.3.

Posted on her site in French, and on The Fresh Loaf in English, it’s designed to make bread for those in a pinch. I followed her exact weights, but varied my proofing method, due in part because I came home around 10:00 in the evening. My stock levain was looking cold,had very few bubbles or anything to give the impression it was even alive! My other two levains, rye and liquid, were no help either; the rye has=d been completely neglected and the liquid levain was very bubbly though the hydration was too high. Of course, I could have adjusted it but who wants to do the math that late at night? So knowing I risked hazard using my lifeless 100% hydration stock levain, I built up my loaf with the 1.2.3 method.

Flo suggested using various flours, mine included the following: Spelt, rye, kamut, barley and wheat. If I was going for it, I decided to go for broke, using as many as I could. Waiting for the initial rise, I hadn’t reckoned how late at night it was getting, so I left the dough out in the cool kitchen. Yes, it’s Spring here, but still cool. The bulk ferment took around five hours. My cat woke me up at the crack of dawn, thankfully, and the dough was well risen. So I shaped it, let it rise another two and a half hours and popped it into the oven….waited…and well, it was perfect!

Hopefully Flo will have some more ideas up her sleeve for some great baking ideas, maybe with different hydrations in levain, whatever she endeavours to discover and share, I am a willing guinea pig, this is an awwesome loaf, can’t wait to let it cool and try it!