Month: July 2019

Sourdough with Leaven

This coming week I am on a restricted diet for an upcoming medical procedure so I am not allowed any whole grain breads. So I am making a white sourdough using Chad Robertson’s method for Tartine Bread.

The process starts with making a leaven the night before mixing the dough and letting it sit out on the counter overnight. His goal is to keep the acid level low in the leaven and the bread, a non-sour sourdough. To achieve that he uses a small amount of starter, 1 tablespoon, to 200 grams each of water and flour for a recipe that makes 2 loaves of bread. Then only half the leaven is used in the final dough.

I have adapted his process to suit my schedule. I like to bake between 8:30 and 9:00 in the morning. I found that if I mix my dough on the morning before that it finished bulk fermentation by late afternoon. I would then form and shape the loaves and put the in the fridge until the next morning. I found that 16 to 18 hours in the fridge the bread was more sour than I like. I needed to keep the time in the fridge between 10 and 12 hours to keep the dough from getting too sour. That means into the fridge between 8:30 and 9:00 pm or later.

So what does that mean for my process? That means I need to mix my dough in the early afternoon. If my leaven sat from 9:00pm until early afternoon the next day it would be too sour and possibly losing its leavening power. So I make the leaven with half the water and flour at 9:00pm and then refresh it at 9:00am with the same amount of flour and water as the night before. By early afternoon it risen beautifully with out forming too much acid. Normally I use my 50-50 mix of all purpose flour and white whole wheat flour but because of my temporary dietary restriction I used bread flour only which worked fine.

Bulk fermentation took 6 hours with the kitchen at 74F. From there the dough was pre-shaped, rested on the work surface for 30 minutes, then final shaped, into a lined banneton and into the fridge for 12 hours.

After proofing in the fridge overnight the dough went into a cold parchment lined dutch oven, was slashed, covered and placed in a cold oven. The oven was turned on to 450F. Timing was started when the oven reached the set temperature and the bread baked for 20 minutes with the cover on and 20 minutes with the cover off.

The flour used for this loaf was King Arthur Organic Bread Flour. I have no affiliation with them.

The Formula

My Process

1. 9:00pm, weigh ingredients for the leaven using 50% each of the water and flour.
2. Mix starter into the water then mix flour into the water. Combine to a smooth mixture.
3. Cover bowl and let rest on counter overnight.
4. 9:00am, mix remaining water into the leaven, then mix the remaining flour into the leaven.
5. Cover bowl and let rest on counter until early afternoon.
6. 12:30pm, weigh out ingredients for the dough.
7. Combine the leaven and 350g of the water in a mixing bowl. Mix to incorporate.
8. Add the flour to the water mixture a couple of large spoonfuls at a time using a dough whisk to incorporate. Eventually you need to use your hands. Continue to add and mix until all the dry flour is incorporated into the dough.
9. Transfer the dough to a container for bulk fermentation and cover.
10. Let rest on the counter for 40 minutes.
11. Add the remaining 25g of water and half the salt on top of the dough. Perform several stretch and folds to incorporate. Add the remaining salt to the top of the dough and again stretch and fold to incorporate. Don’t worry if all the salt and water are fully incorporated, as the dough is worked more and bulk ferments it will fully incorporate.
12. 1:50pm, bulk fermentation begins.
13. Stretch and fold the dough at 30 minute intervals until a good windowpane test is achieved. This time took 5 times. Let dough continue to bulk ferment in covered container.
14. Dough will increase in volume by about 30% during bulk fermentation. From this point on handle the dough gently to preserve as many of the gas bubbles as possible.
15. 7:50pm, volume has increased and dough is soft. Remove dough from container to un-floured work surface.
16. Using a floured bench scraper shape the dough blob into a rough ball. Flour the top of the dough and using the bench scraper flip the dough on the work surface. Shape the dough into a tighter ball. Then flip the dough over to a very lightly floured area of the work surface. Using your hands rotate and draw the dough ball across the work surface to further tighten the ball.
17. Flour the dough and cover with a towel. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
18. Final shape the dough to the desired shape, this time was a boule and place seam side up in a well floured linen lined banneton.
19. 8:40pm, place banneton in a plastic grocery bag and into the fridge to proof overnight.
20. 8:25am, line dutch oven with 10” parchment circle, remove dough from fridge and invert into the dutch oven gently. Slash dough with lame.
21. 8:30am, cover dutch oven and place in a cold oven. Set temperature to 450F and turn oven on.
22. Wait for over to reach set temperature, then set timer for 20 minutes.
23. Remove cover from the dutch oven at the end of the set time. Set timer for an additional 20 minutes.
24. Check the bread for doneness at the end of the time. If necessary, rotate and bake for an additional 1 to 2 minutes.
25. Remove from oven and remove bread to a cooling rack. Let bread cool for at least 1 hour before slicing.

So there you have my timeline and process that I followed for this loaf of bread.

My only issue with this loaf of bread was that bottom crust over browned and is very difficult to slice through. The rest of the crust was great as are the flavor and texture.

We had this bread the night it was baked with butter and used it to sop up tomato sauce from our plates with dinner. We had it toasted with butter and a fried egg with a runny yolk on top for breakfast the next morning. In both cases it enhanced the meal.

Rustic Italian Loaf with Semolina

It has been a while since I have posted. We went away for a few days for a mini vacation and I’ve had a tough time getting back to baking and blogging.

On top of that I am experiencing changes in the way my starter is acting. Since the weather has gotten warm my starter has become weak and listless. When I went to make this loaf of bread, there was no sign of activity 5 hours after refreshing it and it certainly didn’t float. I proceeded anyway figuring I could compensate with longer bulk fermentation. That worked but bulk fermentation took a total of 19 hours with 8 hours and 45 minutes in the fridge.

The long fermentation gave the bread a distinct sourdough flavor, almost like a San Francisco sourdough, not unpleasant but not what I wanted for an Italian Bread.

The flours used for this bread were King Arthur Organic Bread Flour and Caputo Semolina.

The Formula

My Process

1. Weigh all ingredients for sponge.
2. Add the starter to the water in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Add the flours to and mix to incorporate the flours into the counter.
3. Cover and let rest on the counter for at least 5 hours. Then place covered bowl in the fridge until the next morning.
4. The next morning weigh all ingredients for the dough.
5. Add the starter to the water in a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly. Break up the sponge into pieces and incorporate into the water with a dough whisk.
6. After the sponge is incorporated begin adding the flour mixture, a handful at a time. Incorporate each flour addition with a dough whisk before making another. Use hands to make sure all the dry flour is incorporated into the dough.
7. Cover mixing bowl and let rest on counter for 20 to 30 minutes.
8. Add about 1/2 the salt on top of the dough. Fold dough a couple of times. Add the remaining salt on top of the dough and fold several more times to incorporate the salt.
9. Transfer the dough to a clean container for bulk fermentation. Cover and let rest on counter for 60 minutes.
10. Stretch and fold dough on 60 minute intervals a total of 4 or 5 times or until a good windowpane test is achieved.
11. From here on this was an abnormal process due to the low activity of the starter.
12. Let the dough rest covered on the counter until bed time then place the covered dough in the fridge to continue bulk fermentation.
13. Remove the dough from the fridge when getting up the next morning. Let rest on the counter for 2 hours.
14. Remove the dough from the fermentation container to an unfloured work surface.
15. Use a floured bench scraper to shape the dough into a ball.
16. Flour the top of the ball and cover and let rest on work surface for 30 minutes.
17. Invert the dough ball onto a floured work surface a shape dough into its final shape. This time it was a small batard.
18. Place the dough seam side up in a lined and floured banneton to proof. Cover banneton.
19. Place baking stone in oven and preheat oven to 500 F.
20. After 60 minutes check dough to see if it is proofed. If not continue checking on 15 minute intervals. The impression of a finger press in the dough should slowly fill. It is better be slightly underproofed that overproofed.
21. When dough is proofed, place roasting pan in oven to preheat. Invert dough on to a parchment lined peel.
22. Score dough as desired.
23. Remove preheated roasting pan from oven. Transfer dough on parchment to baking stone and cover with inverted roasting pan. Close oven and reduce temp to 475 F.
24. Bake covered for 20 minutes. Remove cover and reduce oven temp to 450 F. Bake another 20 minutes.
25. Remove bread from oven to a cooling rack.
26. Let bread cool at least 2 hours before slicing.

This turned out to be a very good bread, just not what I was aiming for.

This experience has shown me that baking naturally leavened breads are very forgiving. I used a starter that I knew shouldn’t have enough strength to leaven bread and it came though for me, given enough time and patience on my part. For the better part of a day and a half I was ready to dump out the dough. It wasn’t until the next morning when I saw the bubbles in the dough that I thought it might work. Was it a perfect loaf of bread? No, but it tasted good and in the end that’s what I want.