Hi,
I've got a starter successfully bubbling away (I'm feeding it twice a day and it doubles in size for each feeding and is full of bubbles) and am interested in making my first loaf. There seem to be a heap of recipes out there, with a lot of variation in how long to leave it to prove, kneading vs folding, etc. Does anyone have a dead simple beginners loaf that I can try before I build up to more advanced techniques?
Thanks in advance,
Ben
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If I had to pick a good simple easy to follow recipe, you can't go wrong with Norwich sourdough or Shiao-Ping's Home bread.
We can't wait to see the photos Ben! have fun :o)
OK, here's what happened:
I took 100g of starter (100% hydration), and put it in a bowl with 200g water. I mixed this up with a whisk, then added 300g flour. This looked pretty dry to me.
I left this to rest for 30 minutes, then tried to mix in 6 grams of salt. It was way stickier than I thought, so I ended up doing a lot of folding with wet hands. The dough looked super wet after this.
I then left it to rest for 3 hours, and did a bit of folding at the end of each hour. This was pretty tricky due to how wet the dough was, so at the end of the 3rd hour I turned it out onto a floured counter and incorporated some flour while I foldeed and shaped. Because I wasn't confident with the consistency, I put it into a pan rather than freeform.
I put a damp tea towel over the loaf, put it in a plastic bag then put it in the fridge overnight.
In the morning, I took it out of the fridge. It had grown, I wouldn't say it had doubled though. I made a clumsy attempt at some slashes (need a sharper knife and to go deeper next time), put some water on top with a brush then put it into a 240C oven, pouring some water into a pan at the last moment.
At the 20 minute mark I brushed and steamed again, and took it out at 30 minutes because the top was quite dark. I noticed that it had a bit of spring in the oven.
I was hoping for a more open crumb, and a slightly stronger flavour in the bread, but I was reasonably happy for a first attempt.
Any tips?
Much better than my first try, congratulations!
I have been trying to perfect the Norwich Rye Sourdough.
It is pretty straight forward and I've been having pretty good results. I use a colander lined with a well floured t-shirt to retard in and then turn it out onto some parchment paper before slashing and putting it into the oven.
I am less partial to the darker breads than is my wife, so from time to time I substitute GP flour for the 120 grams of rye that the formula calls for. Either with or without rye it tastes great.
I too feed my starter twice a day. It seems to be at it's peak at around 5 hours, after which it starts to fall back in on itself. SO to get a little more flavor I have waited for 6 hours after the last feeding (or so, daily activities depending...) before I mix the dough.
Right now I have my starter sitting there all happy and hungry. I'll feed it in a few and then make up my dough when I get home from work tonight.
GL!
James.
It's a great looking first loaf Ben! I bet it tasted wonderful!
I think maybe there was too much water added with the "wet" hands folding. I usually lightly oil my bench top (and hands) for kneading, that way you aren't adding either more water or more flour (if you flour your bench for kneading) then it's placed into a lightly oiled container between folds whilst doing the bulk fermentation. Most of my recipes I'm trying at the moment call for the flour and water to be mixed and autolysed, then add the starter (stiff) and salt - I find it quite difficult kneading in the salt properly at this stage so have added everything together then let autolyse - haven't noticed much difference to be honest.
See if using oiled hands instead of wet makes a difference. But keep at it - it only gets better :o)
I've had two attempts since this first one.
My second attempt used a different technique (leaving a sponge overnight, making a drier dough, no overnight proofing) and yielded a delightfully tasty, sour loaf but didn't achieve much rise.
My third attempt (photos below) had me go back to my original technique, with the main difference being I worked with 10% rye and worked on my wet hands technique to reduce the amount of water I incorporated into the dough. This one had great rise overnight and good spring in the oven, but lacked the beautiful sour flavour of the previous technique. If I can combine the two I'll be happier. My goals now are: