I'm trying to work out my go to recipe for making Sourdough.
Current Recipe
Ingredients
- 400g of bread flour (a flour with high protein)
- 100g of whole wheat flour (ideally a bread flour too)
- 300g of water (60%)
- 10g of salt (2%)
- 50g of stiff sourdough starter (10%)
Method
- Mix the ingredients in a bowl until combined.
- Leave for 15 minutes, check that it passes the windowpane test, if not leave it for another 15 minutes
- Smooth the dough on your kitchen bench, turning and dragging it towards yourself to create surface tension. Then put it in a sealed pot for bulk fermentation - approximately 6-8 hours
- Wet your hands and stretch and fold, you can do this every hour during bulk fermentation if you like.
- Continue bulk fermentation until the dough has increased to 150% of it's original size. This can (should?) take about 12 hours
- Take the dough out of the container and smooth out the surface, then leave it for 15 minutes
- Put it into the correct shape and flour the dough, place in a banneton or floured cloth for final proofing. This should take 1-2 hours
- Cook the bread, on the video he uses a steam (like) oven, but I'll use the le creuset casserole dish.
References
- Easy Sourdough Ciabatta - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndf92M00qJ8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu1emaglC1M
ABC Everyday
I started with this recipe from Mary Grace Quiqley - https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/sourdough-bread-for-beginners/100480554
Ingredients
- 45g sourdough starter
- 300g water
- 8g salt
- 350g baker's flour (or plain flour is also ok)
- 50g wholemeal flour
Method
Day 1: Making the dough
- Mix the ingredients: Measure out your starter into a mixing bowl. Add the salt and water. Mix with a wooden spoon to create a milky liquid. Keep mixing until most of the salt is dissolved into the water. Add the wholewheat and baker's flour and mix. It will be a fairly dry, shaggy dough. Now you can use your hands to get the flour nicely mixed in, keep mixing until no dry flour is visible. Then leave your dough on the counter covered with a wet tea towel for 1 hour.
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Hourly folds: After 1 hour, you are going to do a type of fold called a 'stretch and fold'. First of all, wet your hands so that the dough doesn't stick to them. Then simply pick up a corner of the dough, stretch it upwards to about the top of the mixing bowl and then fold it back down on top of itself. Turn the bowl and repeat 5 to 10 times until the dough starts to form more of a rounded shape. You can also lift the dough up, out of the bowl and smooth it with your hands. Then cover the dough with a wet tea towel and leave it for about 1 hour.
Repeat these stretch and folds every hour for the next 1–3 hours, or until you decide to go to bed. You will notice the dough becomes smoother and has more air bubbles each time you do a set of folds. The folds help the air bubbles to disperse more evenly through the dough, so the more you of them you do before you go to bed, the prettier your bread will look on the inside.
3. Leave the dough on the counter overnight: When you decide to go to bed, just leave the dough on the kitchen counter, covering it with a wet tea towel. It will continue to develop and grow as you sleep.
Day 2: Baking the bread
- Shape and preheat the oven: The next morning, about 12 hours after you mixed together your dough (11 or 13 hours will also be fine), preheat your oven with a Dutch oven inside to its highest temperature (about 250˚C).
While the oven is heating up, lightly flour your kitchen bench. Do some gentle stretch and folds to coax your dough out of the mixing bowl. Put your dough ball onto the bench. Do more stretch and folds until the dough becomes a fairly tight ball. Then flip the ball over so that the seam side is down on the bench. Turn it around and around, using your hands to make the ball round and neat.
Then get a deep bowl, eg. a soup bowl or a small mixing bowl, and line it with a clean, dry tea towel. Sprinkle a little flour onto the tea towel and onto the top of the dough ball. Then plop your dough ball into the bowl, seam side up. Pull in the edges of the dough in towards the centre to make the ball extra tight. Now put the bowl with the dough in it into the fridge. -
Get the dough ready to bake: Once your oven has been preheating for about 45 minutes, take the bowl with the dough in it out of the fridge. Get a piece of baking paper cut to about the size of your dough ball and plop the dough, seam side down, onto the baking paper. Use a very sharp knife to cut a cross shape into the top of the dough.
Next, carefully get your Dutch oven out of the oven. Plop your dough into the Dutch oven, with the cross shape facing up. Give the dough a few sprays of water with a spray bottle. Then replace the lid and put the Dutch oven back into the oven.
3. Baking: Bake at full temperature (around 250˚C) for 10 minutes. Then bake at 225˚C for 20 minutes. Next, remove the lid of the Dutch oven and then bake for another 10–15 minutes, until your loaf looks lovely and golden brown.
4. Admiring your first loaf: Finally, take your loaf out of the oven and enjoy it! You're supposed to wait until it's cooled down completely but you can also just cut into it after about 10 minutes. It's actually the best when it's so warm and fresh.
The Bread Code
Next I'm going to try this recipe from YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36GdGT0XYwE
Ingredients
I'm going to halve these quantities;
- 800g of bread flour (a flour with high protein)
- 200g of whole wheat flour (ideally a bread flour too)
- 600g of water (60%)
- 20g of salt (2%)
- 100g of stiff sourdough starter (10%)
Method
- Mix the ingredients in a bowl until combined.
- Leave for 15 minutes, check that it passes the windowpane test, if not leave it for another 15 minutes
- Smooth the dough on your kitchen bench, turning and dragging it towards yourself to create surface tension. Then put it in a sealed pot for bulk fermentation - approximately 6-8 hours
- Wet your hands and stretch and fold, you can do this every hour during bulk fermentation if you like.
- Continue bulk fermentation until the dough has increased to 150% of it's original size. This can (should?) take about 12 hours
- If you've made the full amount of dough divide into appropriate sizes and smooth out the surface, then leave it for 15 minutes
- Put it into the correct shape and flour the dough, place in a banneton or floured cloth for final proofing. This should take 1-2 hours
- Cook the bread, on the video he uses a steam (like) oven, but I'll use the le creuset casserole dish.