This is THE wonderful sourdough recipe that I have always
wanted to share but keep forgetting because it’s just oh so good you'll forget what you were about to do before. At home, we’re not
that good at waiting till the bread cools before we eat them. So every time I
bake these, once they’re out of the oven, we usually wait for 5 minutes just so
that we can listen to the crackling sound the crust makes and deeply inhale the
fantastic aroma, then indulge like we have not eaten a single gram of carbohydrate in a month.
The name was given by Susan of Wild Yeast to honor the
Vermont hometown of King Arthur Flour where Jeffrey Hamelman resides and teaches. She adapted this recipe from Hamelman's book, Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes; THE book I really
want for Christmas. If you are a bread enthusiast like me and spend hours
reading about bread on the internet, I’m pretty sure you would come across this
wonderful sourdough bread because it’s widely popular.
Yield: 1 kg (2 medium rather large loaves)
Ingredients
450 gr all purpose flour
60 gr rye flour
300 gr water at about 74F
180 gr mature 100% hydration sourdough starter**
11 gr salt
Note:
Feed/refresh your starter at least three hours before making the bread
**100% hydration means equal part of flour and water for feeding
Note:
Feed/refresh your starter at least three hours before making the bread
**100% hydration means equal part of flour and water for feeding
Directions
-Mix the flours, water, and
starter until just combined.
-Let the dough rest (autolyse) for 30 minutes.
-Add the salt and continue kneading (or mixing if you have the luxury of owning a good mixer *cue to hubby*) until the dough reaches a medium level of gluten development. This should only
take about 5 minutes.
-Transfer the dough to an oiled container (preferably a low,
wide one so the dough can be folded without removing it from the container).
-Ferment at room temperature for 2.5 hours, with
folds at 50 and 100 minutes.
-Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter. Divide it
into two. Preshape the dough pieces into balls.
-Sprinkle the balls lightly with flour, cover loosely with
plastic, and let rest for 15 minutes.
-Shape into batards and place seam-side-up in a floured
couche. If you dont have it, simply rest the batards on your silpat/good quality parchment paper lined tray seam-side-down. Though I have a couche, unless I'm proofing baguettes, I much prefer silpat/good quality parchment paper because it is simply more convenient. I don't I need to transfer the proofed loaves to tray hence there is a lesser room for error.
-Cover with plastic wrap and proof at room temperature for 2–2.5 hours.
-Preheat the oven, with baking stone if you have it, to 240C. You
will also need steam during the initial phase of baking, so prepare for this
now.
-Turn the proofed loaves onto a semolina-sprinkled peel or
parchment if you're using a couche. Slash each one with two overlapping cuts that are almost parallel to
the long axis of the batard.
-Once the loaves are in the oven, turn the heat down to 225C.
Bake for 12 minutes with steam, and another 15 – 18 minutes
without steam. Leave the oven door cracked open a bit for the last 5 minutes
of this time. The crust should be a deep brown. Then turn off the oven and
leave the loaves in for 5 minutes longer, with the door ajar.
Time Frame
Pin It
Mix/autolyse: 35 minutes
First fermentation: 2.5 hours
Divide, bench rest, and shape: 20 minutes
Proof: 2.5 hours (or 1.5 hours, then retard in the fridge for 2 – 16 hours if you plan to bake it later )
Bake: 35 minutes
My friends always ask me about feeding a starter matter and the time needed between refreshing the starter and using it for the bread making. Well, not all starters are the same. Some are stronger than the others. Mine, it thrives in harsh environment, our house is filled with yell hard love harder ladies, it's alive and kicking. But one thing I do like, is keeping my starter at 50% hydration. That means feeding it with flour and water with 2:1 ratio. That allows me more time between each feeding time.
About the sourness of the sourdough bread itself, I concur that there is no bread made with sourdough would taste identically the same. Store A's bread would taste different even it's only slightly with store B's. Depending on how you maintain your starter and what you've been feeding it, certainly rye fed starter would produce more sour bread than white flour fed. I alternate Bonnie's feeding with rye and white flour because we love the rye taste in our bread and pizza but we don't want it to be overwhelmingly rye-ish.
I strongly recommend any sourdough lover to try this recipe. It has great crust and the crumb is surprisingly soft.
What do I do with so much bread in the house?
Make French Onion Soup of course!
Love,
Amy
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