Sourdough bread

One of my new hobbies has been renewing an interest in bread making and in particular using a sourdough starter. This is a mix of flour and water that ferments and becomes active with ‘good bacteria’ and yeasts. It is fed twice daily to build up its strength and from then on can be put in the fridge to slow the action and be brought out to use in the baking process.
As with all new hobbies this is a learning curve and my first loaves were like frisbees. A bit close textured and with little rise. However I persevered, read books, articles and blogs, joined Facebook groups and eventually I started to produce what I think is an enjoyable sourdough loaf. The texture is fairly airy and it has a crispy crust. There are many advantages of using a starter like this. The taste is super and not too sour, the bread is more easily digested because of the action of the yeasts and bacteria than standard bread and it has good keeping qualities.
I am going to see a friend in Gloucestershire today for a belated birthday lunch and decided to take her a small boule of my bread and a jar of homemade marmalade. I took photos yesterday of the various stages in the process.

The first photo is of the first mix of strong white flour, water, starter and salt. This is all that goes into making a plain white sourdough boule.It is a rather shaggy mix that is left for an hour to let the process start. This is called ‘autolyse’

For the next couple of hours I performed a series of stretch and folds every thirty minutes or so but timing is not that important at this stage. The dough is grabbed at one side, pulled upwards and stretched over to the other side of the bowl. The bowl is turned and the stretch is repeated about 8-20 times. All the work is done in the bowl and I don’t do a traditional knead.

Afte a couple of hours the bowl is covered and then left to prove, usually overnight at room temperature. I cheated yesterday and proved on the dough setting in my oven to speed up the process so I could bake this morning.

After the overnight prove I would generally shape and place in a wooden basket called a banneton. This is put in the fridge to develop flavour and firm up prior to baking. However last night I had speeded up the process, shaped and put into the bannetons and into the fridge.

This morning I turned out the dough, score the top and baked. I put the dough in an enamel roaster with a lid. This goes into the cold oven which I then set at 240c fan for 30 minutes then reduce to 220cfan. As this was a small boule I baked for 45 minutes but my normal sourdough loaves bake for a total of 60 minutes.

This is the final result which I will wrap in baking paper tied with string. I also have a jar of homemade Merry marmalade (with gin) for her.

So, that’s the start of my day. I’m looking forward to lunch out and then this evening a concert by the King Singers at the Malvern Theatre.

Catherine