My hobby is baking but I am a total newbie when it comes to baking sourdough bread although I have baked yeast breads. I also love baking cakes, cookies etc. In short, I just love baking! I live in India where its hard to find some ingredients for home baking except for the basic ingredients like flour, yeast, butter, etc. So, I am always on a hunt for baking goods. I cant use complex terms so please bear with my casual writing. I have a small oven which is a microwave+convection (fan type) that doesn't bake very well sometimes and drives me crazy. I plan on getting a new oven, a bigger one, after a couple months. I wana bake french bread like Baguettes. I only bake for one person so most of the time the loaves I bake are smaller and recipes are cut into half or quarter. Well, that was my intro.
After i read the instructions for making the sourdough starter on this site I decided to give it a try. Now I have a lively starter stored in refrigerator and earlier today i baked my first loaf of sourdough bread. I used a basic recipe of flour salt and water with a little canola oil. 2 cups of white flour 1 cup of whole wheat flour 1 tbsp canola oil 1/2 tsp salt water to knead (sorry due to my old habits i didn't measure water) I left the dough to rise for 7 hours after the kneading it for 10 mintues. I folded and pulled the dough 2 times before shaping the loaves. I divided the dough in three, 2 loaves and 1 part for Kougin Amann. Let the 2 loaves sit for 3 hours again while I made Kougin Amann with the rest of the dough. I then slashed the top of loaves about 1/2 inch deep and put them in a 250C oven for baking 15mins, since the loaves were small I thought this setting was enough but I think I should have baked them a little less The air pockets were small, inside was a little chewy and the sourness made my tongue tingle. I love its taste sooooo much. The crust was crunchy exactly the way I like it. For my first time I think I did good but I would like some opinions how can I improve my bread baking skills. I would also like more air pockets, a little less sour and thicker crust. Please give me a few tips. I plan to bake again after 2 days. The Kougin Amann I baked was delicious and sorry no pictures cuz I ate it when it came out of oven. Couldn't hold myself back. I folded the dough with butter inside, rolled and folded, repeated the steps again with sugar. I didn't add apples or any fruit. I brushed honey over it and sprinled a lot of sugar on top before putting it in oven. The sourness and sweetness was honestly divine. Next time I want to add fruit.
PS: I didn't measure water because in India we make flat/unleavened bread almost everyday that it has become a habit for me not to measure water and get the dough's consistency to my liking. Next time I will measure the water. I really need to learn to measure the ingredients instead of doing it by habit or instinct (in my case). --Syd.
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I am a very back to basics type of person... so take my comments with a pinch of salt... I make a great sourdough loaf with only flour water and a bit of salt.. I think that is the most amazing quality of sourdough breads that they need so little and come out great. So don't bother too much about fancy ingredients. Don't start measuring water... The best is to use the skill you have. You have developed a skill for feeling the dough and knowing when it is just right. That is the best way. Different makes and batches of flour have different water contents, so the only really good way is to develop a feel for the dough just like our grandparents did. The only thing I do measure, is the flour by cup, so that I consistantly get approximately the same size loaf. I also never measure the starter. I use a wet pancake batter consistency for the starter. It has never failed me. I just throw in some flour and water each time to feed it. I never throw out starter as the recipes say, I keep it in a container which is big enough for a few feeds, and if I won't be baking for a few days, I put it in the fridge to slow it down. I can let the dough rise for about 12 hours in total for a good loaf, but I normally choose to let it rise for 24 hours to get a good sour flavour. If it's very hot, you have to move the dough into the fridge for part of the 24 hours, otherwise it'll rise too much... Good Luck!