Tag: Starter

Everyday sourdough sandwich loaf

Everyday sourdough sandwich loaf

Ingredients:

  • 100-130 grams well-fed sourdough starter
  • 325-350 grams water
  • 500 grams of flour (can you various ratios of bread flour to whole wheat to etc)
  • 15-20 grams oil (can use neutral oil (Avocado, vegetable) or could use olive oil)
  • 15-20 grams of honey
  • 10 grams fine sea salt

I’ve been making a weekly loaf for the past year or so. With this recipe, you definitely have some leeway on adjusting the types of flours along with some of the enrichments (oil and honey). It is also a fairly forgiving recipe I feel (or maybe I just do it regularly enough that I’ve grown accustomed to it). The above recipe makes 1 loaf (in a 8.5 inch x 4.5 inch loaf pan). This is also a no-knead recipe. The loaf can be made ahead of time and then stored to continue to ferment and develop in the fridge for 24-48 hours. Typically I will bake it ~24-36 hours after forming the loaf.

  1. Combine the water, well-fed starter, 500 grams of flour (my current combination is 350 grams bread flour, 50 grams of semolina flour and 100 grams of whole wheat flour), oil and honey in a mixing bowl. I use a spatula and stir and make sure everything is well incorporated together (about 2-4 minutes of mixing usually).
  2. Let sit (auto-lyse) for anywhere from 30-90 minutes covered.
  3. Slowly incorporate the salt – I usually add a little bit at a time and using a wet hand knead the salt until well incorporated.
  4. Cover and let rest 45-60 minutes
  5. Perform a stretch and fold (using a moist hand, grab dough at 12 o’clock position and pull upwards toward ceiling. Without allowing the dough to rip, pull it down towards 6 o’clock. Turn bowl 1/4 counter-clockwise and repeat above and continue until back to original position. Can continue to do this to tighten dough (another full rotation). Optional would to flip dough over at end (should have smooth ball). Cover
  6. Wait another 45-60 minutes (dependent on room temp)
  7. Repeat stretch and fold an additional 3 times (total of 4). Sometimes the dough will look mature and ready after 3 stretch and folds and that is fine as well.
  8. Dump dough out on well floured surface. Using bench scraper, gather the dough (bringing each corner to center) and then flip dough to have a nice ball. Cover with tea towel and let sit for 20 minutes.
  9. Stretch and flatten dough out into a large rectangle. Bring the left side of the dough and fold to the center line along the vertical axis. Then fold from the right edge to the center overlapping – envelope fold. Then grasp dough closest to you and roll it away from you creating a cylinder. Tuck the ends of the dough underneath to create a smooth surface for each end.
  10. Using a bench scrapper lift the dough into a well oiled loaf pan (in my case a 8.5 inch x 4.5 inch loaf pan)
  11. Place this in a bag (can also add some oil to top of dough and cover with saran wrap) and let rise for ~1.5 hours (depending on temperature in kitchen).
  12. Place in refrigerator (~12-48 hours).
  13. Turn oven on to 400 F. Place pan with water in lower rack of oven
  14. Remove dough from fridge. Sprinkle flour on top of bread and smooth. Using sharp knife, score the bread.
  15. Bake for 20 minutes at 400F
  16. Remove the water container (be careful not to splash hot water onto glass of oven door as it may crack – I use a tea towel to cover the glass while removing the water container).
  17. Bake additional 30-35 minutes until golden brown (bread temp ~200 F). I usually just bake an additional 33 or 34 minutes as it seems to work for my oven.
  18. Turn bread out on cooling rack and let cool fully before slicing.

Visual instructions:

Advertisement

Sourdough boule – with homemade starter

Sourdough boule – with homemade starter

I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to posting about making my own sourdough starter but this week’s bake involved using that homemade starter.  Using starter from the fridge does require a bit of advanced preparation as you need to “wake” your starter up and get it up to snuff to bake with.  On Thursday I pulled my sourdough starter out of the fridge (it had been in there for about a week).  I split it in half, fed one half and let the yeast eat for awhile (i.e. get some bubbles going) and then replaced that back in the fridge.  The other half I removed half of the starter and then fed it with 1/4 cup water and just under 1/2 cup of flour.  Previously I had been feeding the starter based on weights but decided for this week’s bake I would switch to using volume because it is much quicker using a measuring cup instead of getting the scale out.  I continued feeding the starter around every 12 hours for the next 3 days until I had an active bubbly starter.

Sunday morning I fed the starter one more time then waited about 4 hours (I read that is when the starter is most active).  I  haven’t used the sourdough starter by itself as the only source of yeast so was interested to see how this would turn out.  My recipe was as follows:

  • Sourdough starter (199 g)
  • Bread flour (500 g)
  • Water (360 g)
  • Salt (10 g)

I deliberately kept this recipe simple as I wanted to see how much sourdough flavor I could get from the starter.  I mixed all of the above together into a wet mess, let it auto-lyse for 30 minutes and then did the slap and fold method for about 15 minutes.  This dough was placed in a clean bowl and allowed to bulk ferment for about 1-1.25 hours.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the dough had increased by 1.5-2 x it original size.

After slap & fold
After bulk ferment

I proceeded with 3 stretch and folds (envelope style) separated by around 30 minutes each.  I could feel the dough coming together nicely.  After the last stretch and fold, I bench rested the dough for 5 minutes, then shaped it creating a nicely tensioned surface.  I used a well floured towel in a collander and put the dough in there to proof for the final time.  Since I made pizza, the kitchen was warm and after about 40 minutes the dough had proofed to the proper amount.  Instead of using a pre-heated dutch oven I free baked the dough on my pizza stone (steel) using some parchment paper to do the transfer.  I misted the inside of the oven and baked the bread at 500 F for 10 minutes, then dropped it to 475 for another 10-15 minutes or so.  When I saw how much oven spring was present, I realized I hadn’t de-gassed the dough enough during my stretch and folds and forming.  Oops!  Oh well.

You can see the impossibly large air holes in the dough, which makes it hard to use as a sandwich.  The great thing about the bread was that it had that characteristic smell of a sourdough loaf.

Overall this bake was more to see how my sourdough starter would function.  I’m happy with the amount of yeast activity present in the starter and also that it does impart some flavor as well.  It’s quite amazing that this starter was created using just water and flour.  The natural bacteria and yeast from the flour and the environment create this living, breathing organism that can be used to bake bread.  Pretty neat!

Lessons for next time: de-gas the dough properly.

-StewsCat