Sourdough Tomato Basil Bread

I wanted to try something different with the sourdough loaf this weekend. I had a lot of cherry tomatoes and some basil that needed to be used up. This tomato basil bread was an experiment that turned out great. I baked this bread the weekend spring break started. My daughter left for a sleep over and I wanted a simple lunch. Flavored bread seemed perfect. Besides I had not used the sourdough starter for a few weeks and it needed to be fed. I used a third of the fed starter for this recipe and the rest to make buns for lunch the next day.

With sourdough I prefer to go by feel rather than a recipe. I used to go with exact weight measurements for all the ingredients when I first started with sourdough bread. I now rely more on feel than measurements.

I mixed the whole wheat flour with the sourdough starter and added the salt. I then mixed in the diced basil along with the sliced cherry tomatoes with the juice. I started with 40% water and felt I needed to go up to 60%. That along with the juice from the tomatoes brought up the hydration to 80%. That is just about where I like it. I followed the process for any other boule except that I did not bake it in a dutch oven. I baked it on an sheet in a 500 F oven. I then spread about a fourth of a teaspoon of ghee over the top and put it back in the oven for about 6 minutes. I lowered the oven temperature to 425 F. Perfect loaf with nice crumb and great taste. I call that a successful experiment.

You will need
12 cherry tomatoes
5-6 leaves basil
100 gm freshly fed starter
100 gm whole wheat flour
60 gm water
4 gm salt
1 tsp. cayenne pepper powder (adjust to taste)

1/4 tsp ghee or butter

Feed the starter and keep aside for 20-30 minutes. I usually keep 50 gm of starter in the refrigerator. I add equal parts flour and water to feed it. I add as much as I need to make the bread and have 50 gm left over to return to the refrigerator. Since I had not used the starter for a while, I first fed it 50 gm of water and 50 gm of flour. I kept that on the counter top for about an hour until it got bubbly. I then added 100 gm of water and 100 gm of flour to it. After another 20-30 minutes it was ready to use. 50 gm went back to the refrigerator, 100 gm went into this recipe, the rest went into making rolls.

Slice the cherry tomatoes and dice the basil. Keep aside. In a bowl combine the starter, the flour and salt. Let it sit for half an hour. Add the tomatoes and basil and fold them into the dough. Keep aside covered.

Over the next hour stretch and fold the dough to strengthen it. Cover and keep aside for about 5 hours. Transfer the dough to a floured work surface and gently fold the sides in. Flip and form a round ball with the seam underneath.

Place in a floured bowl, cover and keep overnight in the refrigerator. The next day preheat the oven to 500 F. Place a sheet in the oven when the temperature is 400 F. Alternately, place a baking stone in the oven. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and transfer to a floured work surface. Score the top with a sharp razor blade. I scored it like a pie making 6 portions.

Transfer the scored loaf to the sheet in the oven. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Turn down the heat to 475 F and bake for another 10 minutes or until the bread is cooked through. Remove from oven and spread a little ghee or butter over the top. Lower the heat to 425 F and return the bread to the oven for another 5-6 minutes. The top should brown. Remove from heat.

Allow it to cool completely before slicing.

Enjoy!

Sourdough Whole Wheat and Rye Boule

For the longest time I would drool over the artisan loaves online and in real bakeries. I wanted that bread coming out of my oven. But I had no clue how to go about baking bread that looked as appealing as it tasted. Then earlier this year I learnt about sourdough artisan bread. I found a group of bakers who were willing to help a newbie like me. They were baking the kind of artisan loaf I wanted to bake. A loaf with good oven spring, color, shape and score lines. And of course open crumb when cut.

To bake artisan bread I had to get over a few hurdles. I needed a starter. Then I needed to learn the basic artisan baking technique - recipes that use nothing but flour, water, salt and sourdough starter. Some hurdles I created for myself. I knew that these loaves are baked at very high temperatures but I was afraid to crank up the oven past 475F. I few online friends talked me out of this fear last week and I agreed to set the oven at 500 F. Nothing bad happened. The last hurdle was scoring. Without scoring I would never bake the beautiful loaves that I admired so much.

Recently I got a very useful tip online. Using a sharp razor blade to score the shaped dough works just as well as an expensive lame. I knew that the score lines should be deep enough to cut the surface but not so deep as to scar the bread. A razor blade held almost horizontal to the surface does the job. This sourdough whole wheat and rye bread is the result of my ongoing experiments.

You will need the following bakers percentage
50% white whole wheat flour
10% rye flour
40% all purpose flour
82% water
2% salt
10% fed starter

Refresh your starter as given here. I used 100 gm of fed starter. In a large mixing bowl mix together all the flours and water. Let it rest for half and hour.

Add the salt and the fed starter and mix together well. You may need to break up the dough with your fingers and reform it again a couple times to get all the salt and starter incorporated. Cover and keep aside.

Refer to this recipe for details on how to fold, turn and then shape the dough.

Over the next hour and a half fold and turn the dough three times. Let it rise covered for another hour and a half.

Flour a working surface and transfer the dough to the surface. Shape the dough as a boule. Transfer to a clean bowl seam side down. Cover and keep refrigerated overnight.

Next morning preheat the oven to 500 F along with the dutch oven. When the oven is preheated removed the shaped loaf from the refrigerator. Transfer it to a work surface. Using a sharp razor blade score a pattern of your choice.

Remove the dutch oven carefully from the oven. It will be very hot. Drop the loaf in the oven. I use a parchment paper on the bottom. Cover and return it to the oven as quickly as possible. Let it bake covered for 15-20 minutes. Remove the cover and allow the loaf to bake/brown for another 15-20 minutes.

Transfer to a cooling rack. Let it cool completely before you slice it.

Enjoy!

 

Pain de Campagne (French Country Bread)

This bread is made of soft white flour with a hint of whole wheat. It is leavened entirely with my homemade wild yeast. The high hydration and long fermentation ensures very good flavor. It goes well with brie and holds up when eaten with soups.

This country loaf was the most popular bread before the baguette took over. It is making a comeback with the resurgence in artisan bread.

Bakers percentage for this bread
All purpose flour 90%
Whole wheat flour 10%
Water 78%
Leaven 20%

I mixed the dough in the afternoon. After about 5 hours of bulk fermentation I shaped it and put it in the refrigerator to proof overnight.

In the morning I baked it in the dutch oven at 475 F, covered for 25 minutes and uncovered for 15. I got great oven spring and a fairly open crumb. The bread was very soft and had great flavor. It was good enough to munch on its own or with some Brie.

Artisan 75% Whole Wheat Hybrid Bread

I have always loved baking but I particularly like baking bread. After baking a whole array of breads using commercial yeast I decided to make my own levain or sourdough starter. I started Bubbles (as she was called) a couple months ago. She was active and bubbling for about 2 weeks and I was able to bake soda bread and Baguettes with her. But then she started smelling like nail polish and had to go.

That was when I realized I needed information about how a sourdough starter worked before I could start a new one. I found a Facebook group Artisan Bakers and that changed everything. People in that group were baking the kind of bread I had drooled over. True artisan bread loaves! I started gathering information. I bought Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast on my Kindle app and read it end to end. It has a lot of information about bread making with commercial yeast and homemade starters. I would highly recommend it to anyone venturing into this area.

I started Bubbles II based on instructions in the book. I use King Arthur Flour for baking. After baking a few breads from the book on a baking sheet I invested in a couple of toys, a dutch oven and a pastry blender. Forkish breads in the book are all baked in a dutch oven. This is my first attempt at baking bread in one.

I started my baking cycle on Friday morning. Here is more information about feeding and maintaining your starter if you are interested.

On Saturday morning I fed the starter around 7 am and we all had sourdough pancakes for breakfast with the discarded or spent starter. I kept aside the fed starter for 6 hours.

After 6 hours I mixed the flour and water with the starter.

As per my baking plan I have about 100 gm of starter left over and that goes into the refrigerator until the next baking cycle starts on Friday.

Since this recipe is a Hybrid bread it uses a scant 1/8 tsp. of commercial yeast. I added the yeast along with salt to the bowl with the flour, water and levain and made a sticky dough from it. By this time it was 4 pm. I let the dough rest covered for 5 hours on the kitchen counter.

During the first hour I uncovered and folded the dough a couple times. Folding strengthens the dough.

By 9 pm after 5 hours the dough had risen to more than double the volume.

I transferred the dough to a floured board to be divided and shaped. I placed the shaped dough seam side down in a floured dry bowl, covered it and put it in the refrigerator overnight. I would love a Benetton or a cane proofing basket but that will have to wait. I do not like to buy too many toys at once.

On Sunday morning about 12 hours after the bowl went into the refrigerator I set the oven to preheat to 450 F with the lidded dutch oven inside.

When the oven was hot I removed the dutch oven and placed a parchment paper on the bottom. Next I took out the shaped dough from the refrigerator.

I inverted it and placed it seam side up in the hot dutch oven.

I replaced the lid and returned the dutch oven to the middle rack of the oven. I let it bake for 25 minutes with the lid on. Then I removed the lid and let it bake uncovered for another 15 minutes. When done I slid the bread out to a cooling rack. Inverting the shaped bread puts the seam side up. As the gas build in the bread the seam is ripped open.

This bread has a crispy crust but the crust is so thin that it is never hard to chew. The bread is very soft and very flavorful. I do not believe I could go back to a regular loaf of bread. The ultimate goal is to retain the gas in the dough during the shaping to ensure an open crumb. I got a fairly even crumb but not as open as I would have liked. I am working on getting that right.

This bread is great for sandwiches. For the exact recipe refer to the book Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish.

Enjoy!

Weizenbrot (Swiss Rustic Bread)

Weizenbrot is a Swiss rustic yeast bread. It can be used for sandwiches but it is best dipped in fondue.

The bread is made using a fairly simple process but takes time to cook. The bread is first cooked briefly at 425 F and then for a longer time at 350 F. This ensures a beautiful crunchy crust and soft center.

You will need
2 cups bread flour (I used King Arthur bread flour)
3 1/4 oz. packets Fleischmann instant yeast
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. oil
2 tbsp. honey
9 oz warm water

Mix all the ingredients except the water in a large mixing bowl. Using the water knead into dough. It will be very sticky. Do not use additional flour, oil or water.

Continue kneading and the dough will turn soft and will not be sticky anymore. It will stick to the bowl and will be springy and bounce back. Cover the dough and let it rise for about 20 minutes or to almost double in size.

Knead the dough again and shape it into a long rope. Start rolling the rope in on itself from one end. Tuck the outer edge under the roll. Never cut or break kneaded dough. Instead work with your hands to get it to the desired shape.

Place the shaped dough on a greased baking sheet and let it rest for about 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 425 F.

Bake for 10 minutes. Turn the bread around in the oven to get even browning. Bake for another 35 minutes or until a knife in the center comes out clean and the bread has a nice brown crust.

Enjoy!