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I’ve been making Cottage Loaves for over 40 years. My recipe comes from Elizabeth David’s “English Bread and Yeast Cookery.” Her chapter title is “Virginia Woolf bakes bread.” I bought the book when my wife was devouring Woolf’s books, so I determined (correctly) that she’d like to devour the bread Woolf made as well.
David’s ingredients are just unbleached flour, and 81 extraction wheat flour, water, salt, and yeast. (I’ve made it sourdough as well, and it works.)
Interestingly, her final proof is only 10 minutes in a cold oven. After 30 minutes of baking she covers it with a cloche until near the end of the bake. Both late cloche and cold oven are unique techniques to me. The resulting bread is wonderful. I have no idea if Virginia Woolf would have recognized it as her recipe.
This looks marvelous and I’ve been wanting to make one of these for years. I’m now excited that I can start with a sourdough version. Could you give us some sense of timing? Is a bread I can/should start in the evening? morning? Thanks!
@fermentzed That’s really interesting. I guess the cloche on top at the end is to keep it from browning excessively 
The bread does take a long time to get up to temperature in the center, so if you like a light crust that would make sense.
I’m thinking that if you have 10 minutes of proofing and a cold start that’s almost like another 10-15 minutes of proofing as the oven warms up. I think that would be a good amount of time for a yeast proof.
@DGB The bulk fermentation was 7 hours or so. If you want to mix the dough in the evening to have it rise overnight, you could use relatively cold water and maybe don’t sleep in lol
You could also mix the dough in the early evening, let it rise at room temperature until you go to bed and then refrigerate it overnight. It will likely need more time at room temperature in the morning.
The final proof was about an hour in a winter kitchen. In summertime it could be more like 30 minutes.
Wonderful, thanks. I’ll give it a try.
This recipe worked very well, although I did alter it somewhat. I successfully doubled it. I also proofed the loaves in the fridge overnight. I look forward to trying it again, and following it as it is written to see what, if any, difference my changes might have made. Thank you for your wonderfully educational and inspirational site!