Sourdough Instructable

I found a nice instructable for Sourdough Bread, with lots of pictures. The blog post from

Personally, I have tried the "Dutch oven" method with in a cast iron pan with a lid but not everyone has one.
I prefer "freeform breads", with a thick crust: I preheat my oven to the max temperature and use a tray with ice cubes: I posted the receipe here.

I also keep using the same sourdough: I keep it in a litre glass jar and refresh it every week. If it smells too much, I throw away half and refresh again. If it turns orange or green, you would have to throw it away and start again.

Over the last 2 WE, I've added 2 handfuls of lineseed and another 2 of sunflower seeds, and used either my favourite Shipton Mill's  "malthouse" flour I got from Olivers in Kew or the Doves malthouse flour (Waitrose).

Tags: bread, sourdough, recipe, foodings.blog.uk

My no-knead sourdough bread

I've now been baking bread almost every week-end for well over 3 years and have tried many different recipes, including this one or that one, but also ciabattas, lardons breads, walnut and apricots breads, etc etc etc.

I've got several books just , including the "ultimate" The Bread Bible, a very concise and good book in French called Les recettes du boulanger : Pains et viennoiseries.

My current routine is to refresh my sourdough starter which I keep in a jar in the fridge on Thursday night, mix the ingredients together on Friday and bake on Saturday. I always keep some dough if it's a white bread to make pizzas for the Sunday night.

So far, I was using the proportion that Joanna gave me:

• 675 g strong organic white bread flour + 75g organic rye flour, or any mix I like of different flours (such as spelt, malted, buckwheat, etc...) but keeping the total at 750g
• 270 g sourdough starter, usually using rye flour or wholemeal or white bread flour -I keep them at around 100-120% hydratation, which is same weight water and flour or a bit more water
• 495 g water
• 15 g salt -regular, coarse sea salt doesn't make a difference except sprinkled on the crust
• Note that you can also add up to 20% of "whatever": dried apricots and walnuts, sunflower and other seeds, lardons (pancetta cubes) and rosemary, etc...

The rest of the recipe is:

• Knead for 15 mn (that's a whole blog post on the subject...)
  
• Leave overnight to prove on a silicon sheet on an oven tray
• Pre-heat the oven to the max (275 Celcius for me)
  
• Bake for about 50-55 mn with a metal tray and 7-10 ice cubes on the oven bottom but NOT under the bread -makes it all soggy
• Reduce heat to about 180 degrees after 20 mn
• Wholemeal, spelt, rye breads take more time to bake: to see if they're done, tap on the bottom to hear if it sounds hollow, if not continue for 5-10 mn.
  

Now, 750 + 135 = 885 g flour for 495 + 135 = 630 g water, which is about 70% hydratation or 66% if you don't account for the sourdough starter.

Over this bank holiday WE, I've tried my new toy -a very nice electronic scale and have altered the proportions to go well over 70% hydratation:

• I've kept the flour at about 750 g (using a mix of my favourite Dove's Organic StrongWhite Bread Flour and about half of the lovely Bacheldre Smoked Malted Flour)
• However, largely due to a handling error I've ended up with over 320 g of starter
• Thinking back of the "no-knead" NYT article I had read some time earlier, I decided to experiment and added about 600 g of water.
• Now, this makes a very soggy dough which you can't knead -just leave proving for about 14-18 hours or thereabouts
  
• Shape as best as you can trying to to add too much flour or you'll see the seams inside the bread
• Mark and prove for 2 hours (on the photo, I had only the time to leave it for 1h but the result is still good).
• Bake as above (again, on the picture, I did not have time to pre-heat the oven really hot, so the bread is softer but it's still OK, kids loved it)

Notes:

• The NYT recipe suggests baking it into a cast iron pan. I've tried it and like the result but prefers my bread to be more wonky and hand shaped. The ice cubes (thanks god I have an fridge with an ice machine) seem to do the job.
• If you use yeast, either frest or dried, you need to reduce the proportions or your dough will deflate back due to the long proving time. You can also do a biga or a starter the day before with a bit of yeast and a 100% hydratation flour-water mixture.
• Sourdough can be started but you need a week to develop it.
  

Links:

• Recipe: No-Knead Bread - New York Times
• Apartment 2024 » Blog Archive » The Famous No-Knead Bread
• Joanna's French sourdough loaf (and lots of lovely holes!!!)
• Smitten Kitchen's no-knead bread

Joanna's wonderful sourdough bread

I've been baking bread, from scratch and by hand for for now well over 2 years (see here for my inital receipe in French) and have had wonderful experiences, all very tasty.

I've never however been fully satisfied with the size of the bubbles, those air pockets forming in the bread, so when I read Joanna's post on French sourdough loaf (and lots of lovely holes!!!) I read it attentively!

She very kindly dropped off a jar of starter (levain) on Friday I set out to follow her instructions. Well, about as well as men can follow instructions I guess...

In the evening, I revived the starter using 50g Shipton wholemeal flour (I ran out of the Shipton Mills organic flour I buy from Oliver's) and about 60g water (to keep the same consistency). I did let the starter bubble all afternoon because I felt it did not work enough, and then it went back into a larger glass jar and into the fridge overnight.

On Saturday noon I augmented the dough with another 100g water +100 grammes of white flour this time -that's 100% hydratation. This time, I bought "Waitrose Extra Strong White Flour" made from "Canadian Red Spring Wheat -a mouthful of unwarranted capitalisation.

In the afternoon, I mixed the dough following Joanna's proportions with a mixer and dough hook for about 4 mn (I usually do it all by hand) and then folded it three times, with a few hours intervals: the dough was very wet with your proportion, I guess I usually work with less than 60% hydratation. By the end of the afternoon, the dough was still very soft but quite strong so I shaped it (on my brand new silicon mat from KooksUnlimited in Richmond). By the evening, I shaped the dough and although it still had not proven to what I would usually expect, I baked it -with a tray in the oven where I added some boiling water to create steam.

Dunring the baking, the bread experienced a much stronger "oven spring" than usual which added something like 20% in volume -amazing. I baked it for about 45 mn.

So, in the end, I got a soft white bread (I did not add rye flour because I ran out) and with A LOT OF BUBBLES!

Conclusion: I have a wonderful bread, and tried it with some Neufchatel cheese from my friend Michel and this morning with my home made honey -FAN-TAS-TIC!


But why?

• Was that the very slow fermentation? (I plan to try with very little -like 20g/kg flour- fresh yeast and double the proving times from my initial receipe)
• Was that the mixer kneading and folding technique?
• Was that the increased hydratation?
• Or is the dough stronger? (it's really annoying that flours in the UK aren't graded like they are in France, from T40 to T100)

bread, food, foodings.blog.uk, receipe