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I broke out one of my starters yesterday and did a little baking. Well, OK, actually I broke it out two days ago — the poor thing had been sitting idle for so long it had collapsed completely, leaving a flattened crust with a tiny smear of viable culture underneath. A few refreshments later, it was back to normal.

My new favorite bread recipe is the Cheese Board’s “Berkeley Sourdough,” as printed in The Village Baker. It begins with a firm levain, mixed down into a soupy starter, following which the dough is overnighted in the bowl, prior to shaping. The technique is unusual. I like it because it accentuates the sour flavor of the finished bread.

I make it with about 40% wholegrain spelt and my usual random mix of wheat flours. The crumb was exquisite. Or as one friend remarked, around a mouthful: “This bread is really good.” Two seconds pass. “This bread is excellent.”

The shaping went really well, I thought. Baguette shaping is notoriously difficult to do well, and although I’ve never done it often enough to get good, I thought I’d turned out a four competent loaves. Ooh, was I wrong.

The two freeform loaves spread badly in the oven. The resulting loaves measured about four inches across and two tall — like no baguettes you’ve ever seen, unless you’ve eaten my baguettes in the past. But here’s the secret of shaping errors: the bread tastes great anyway. Flat baguettes make great sandwich rolls.

The other two loaves were baked in a baguette tray. One actually retained its intended shape, and went with us to Thanksgiving dinner. The other one spread sideways off the pan resulting in a sort of organic, amorphous sagging shape never before seen in a commercial bakery. Or even in my home, which has certainly seen its share of poorly-shaped loaves.

It became my test loaf. Bakers always sample their breads before serving them to company. I had to eat a third of it before I was sure it was good. I very nearly brought it along for the drive, too.