This week, I began the process of making my own sourdough starter from scratch. This means that every day, you have to discard some of the mix and “feed” the starter with new flour and water. I didn’t want to waste any of the starter discards, so I made a new loaf of bread every day. Some were absolute failures but I finally found one that I tweaked for a couple of days and finally came out with this gem.
This makes one loaf.
Implements
- Kitchen scale
- Flexible bench scraper
- Dough whisk or stand mixer with dough hook attachment
- Large mixing bowl
- Bread pan
- Bread lame, razor, or a sharp knife to score the dough
- Additional pan for water
Ingredients
- 200 g sourdough starter
- 500 g white flour
- 275 g lukewarm water
- 12 g salt
- 7 g instant dry yeast (one typical packet)
- 30 g olive oil
- Rice flour or extra bread flour for turning out your dough
- 2 cups additional tap water to put in the bottom of the oven for crust crisping
Instructions
Mix all ingredients well until everything is well incorporated into a dough. If necessary, use a flexible bench scraper to scrape around the sides of the bowl just to get every last bit incorporated into the loaf.
Cover the bowl with a tea towel and let rise for 2-3 hours.
Cover your work surface with rice flour or bread flour. Scrape the dough out of the proofing bowl and onto your work surface using a flexible bench scraper, trying not to tear, overstretch, or break the dough into pieces.
Lightly press out the dough with your fingers onto your floured work surface into a rough rectangular shape. Fold the left and right sides of the rectangular dough in to the middle and press down gently. Then, take the top two corners of the rectangle and fold them over each other and press into the middle of the dough. The top should now be a point. Roll the point down to the middle of the dough and press to seal it. Continue doing that to round out the oblong dough, sealing each time you go around, until there’s no more creases left to seal. Top down, seal. Top down, seal. When it has a good, fat, cylindrical shape without any visible creases, tuck in any lumpy ends and pinch them down to seal them off. You should now have a perfect oblong dough, ready for a loaf bread pan.
Line your bread pan with parchment, add the oblong dough, and let it proof in there for 30 minutes. At the 30-minute mark, preheat the oven to 470F, and let the dough continue to rest in the pan while the oven heats up. (Final proofing time: 40-45 minutes) While the oven is heating, take a roasting tray (or some other oven-safe pan), add 2 cups of water to it, and put in on the bottom shelf of the oven.
Right before putting the bread into the oven, score with a bread lame, and sharp knife, or whatever you use to score dough.
Bake the bread for 15 minutes in the steam at 470. Turn the oven down to 380F, and bake for another 25 minutes or until the top is a light golden brown.
Remove from the oven and cool for 15-20 minutes on a wire rack. (If you cut into it too early, the crumb will drag against the knife when it goes through.)
Enjoy!
That Infernal Itch 