With my sourdough starter active and friendly, I've been baking some fantastic bread. I figured you may need something to do with all that starter, while you wait for second recipe in the fried chicken and waffles duo.
Each day, when I feed my starter, I have to do something with about 1 cup of it. Some days I make pretzels, some days I make waffles and others I just bake some bread. I've learned about half of what I know about bread baking from the King Arthur website, and the other half from the Tassajara Bread Book. The recipe I'm sharing with you below is simple, and almost never fails the patient. I do come from the school of "patience and time are more important than tenth of a unit measurement by weight" for baking. If that's not how you roll, you should probably stop reading this post now.
First addition ingredients:
- Day 1:
- 1 Cup fed Sourdough Starter
- 3 Cups Flour
- 1/2 Cup warm water
Mix together 3 cups of flour with 1 cup starter and the water. I alternate between bread flour, all purpose and blends of all purpose and whole wheat. You can really use any damn flour you want, mixed with at least 30-40% all-purpose, the loaves pictured have a lot of whole wheat in them. Some combinations would benefit from added gluten or need a bit more water. Just add things in smaller amounts than you think necessary and build up to a consistency you like. This should be a lumpy mass of flour, water and yeast. Try to mix it until it approximates "mixed up really well" but don't stress. You are now going to cover and leave the mass of dough in a bowl big enough for it to RISE. Put it in a warm place, 75-85ºF is preferable. Cover it with plastic wrap over the bowl (best), or a kitchen towel (fine) and leave it alone for 6-8 hours. Feel free to check and see how it is rising, but other than that there is nothing you can do but sit and trust your yeast minions to get to work.
After 6-8 hours of sitting in a warm spot I am going to ask you to do something crazy. Put the bowl in the fridge over night. Just stick it in there, all covered up. Why, you ask? Because the sourdough culture will make more sourness if it finishes the rise cold. I remember reading something once about how the lactobacillus make more acetic acid in one state and more lactic in another. Cold makes it more sour.
Second addition ingredients:
- Day2:
- 2 Cups flour
- 2 Tbs Sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp Salt
The following morning, take it out of the fridge and let it sit in a warm spot. As the sponge, as it is now called, comes up to room temperature you'll want to mix in 2 more cups of flour, the salt and the sugar. You can use a standing blender with a dough hook or just your hands, but give the dough a good solid knead. You want it a single, homogenous mass of dough and easily fall/tear off the dough hook without leaving much if any stuck and behind, or cleanly off the walls of the bowl you are mixing in. Form the dough into a single ball, put back it in a bowl that'll let it double in size while rising, cover and let rise at room temperature for at least two hours and up to however many hours you need to feel the dough has risen enough to bake. This is where patience and time come in. Don't worry about it, just leave it alone. If 6 hours or so have passed and you don't think it'll rise any more, bake it anyway. Check and see if it feels warm to the touch or cold. If its cold, put it someplace warmer. If it is warm, heck… bake it! See what happens. I got surprised the other day by a loaf that looked like it had turned into flat, liquid-y batter but when baked had huge fluffy windowpanes in it.
Gently split the dough into two balls and shape into whatever sort of loaf you'd like. I go for round balls and then let them do a final rise in these lovely bread proofing baskets. They leave lovely patterns of flour and indentations in the loaf, as it finishes rising, that add a nice touch. Once the two loaves are doing their final rise, I'll preheat the oven to 425F. I bake directly on my pizza stone, so I'll let the oven sit for 5-10 minutes after it indicates it is preheated, just making sure the stone is consistent with the oven.
I dust my pizza peel with flour and flip the proofing baskets over on it. I score the loaves with 1/2 deep cuts to allow them to vent without splitting, then I spray them down with water and slide the loaves onto the stone. After 5 minutes I'll quickly open the oven door and spray the loaves and oven with water again. Trying to keep the oven slightly humid so the bread can keep expanding and stretching before a crust forms. I give the loaves 20 minutes at 425ºF and then turn the oven down to 375ºF. I give loaves this size about another 40-45 minutes at 375º. You can always pop bread back in the oven at 325-350ºF to freshen them up.
Baking with sourdough is fun, and simple. Waffle recipe coming.
Previously on Boing Boing:
