This year I gave myself the challenge of learning the art of sourdough baking. Before January I had not baked with a starter, had no idea that you could make decent sourdough at home without waste and without buying and special kit and had no idea where to start!
This is how I got on and what I learned.
Step 1 - The Starter
So when it comes to sourdough you have to start with a starter. My first challenge was to nurture the combination of flour and water that gives the necessary yeast and bacteria the space to live, multiply and develop into your favourite baking aides.
My first mistake was my timing, trying to develop a starter in a slightly draughty Victorian house in January was not my best idea. Everything I read online suggested it would take between 5 days to 2 weeks for a starter to develop. After a couple of weeks with no action I started to wonder if my starter was ever going to work. Luckily my friend recommended the St John method, which made for some really interesting reading. This coupled with some added patience (a skill needed for sourdough) let to modest results, but it would take 6 weeks before I had a truly edible loaf.
Step 2 - Baking part 1, using a tin
My first successful loaf was sometime in the making. Until the 6 week point my loaves had been a bit of a disaster - think of the scene in About A Boy when they're feeding the ducks... Lets say those early loaves weren't exactly leavened. Once my starter had started doing its thing I was able to start baking.
My first loaves were not the classic free-form sourdough, but instead baked in a traditional loaf tin. To avoid welding the dough to the tin required liberal amounts of butter, particularly given the long slow prove required for sourdough loaves. I already had a loaf tin, so this was my natural starting point. The results were fairly good, but I was still hankering after the "true" sourdough shape of a classic boule.
Step 3 - Shaping
In order to have a boule shaped loaf you traditionally need a proving basket known as a banneton. With limited cupboard space and until I had any success with baking sourdough loaves I was not keen to buy any additional baking kit. As you can imagine, I was very pleased to discover that all I needed was a couple of bowls and a clean teatowel! In addition to the bowl that I use to mix the dough, I have been using a standard glass mixing bowl lined with a floured teatowel to prove the bread. By a stroke of luck I had a bag of gluten free flour lurking in the back of the cupboard and decided to use this to dust the teatowel to prevent the dough from sticking. As it turns out this was a lucky choice as after reading up further people often recommend using rice flour to dust the proving basket as it is less liable to become sticky during the proving process.
...until I had any success with baking sourdough loaves I was not keen to buy any additional baking kit. As you can imagine, I was very pleased to discover that all I needed was a couple of bowls and a clean teatowel!
Working with sourdough dough is similar to standard dough, although I have found that it can be rather wet, so you have to be quick when working. As with any bread it is important to shape the dough properly so that it holds its shape and creates a good crust. To shape the classic round you need to fold and stretch the dough to create a taut skin on the dough. The dough is then placed into the bowl lined with a floured teatowel taut top side down to prove.
Step 4 - Proving
I have found that this process is one of the most variable parts of baking sourdough. For me it has seemed that proving can take anywhere between 2-3 hours on a warm sunny day, to over 24 hours on a cooler day or if the dough is slowed by putting it in the fridge.
Proving dough in the fridge was a revelation, it meant that my sourdough baking could be adapted to fit around my life, so it could rest and prove in the fridge either overnight, or while I was at work. It can then be taken out and left at room temperature for several hours to warm up and finish proving. I have found that if I take the dough from the fridge in the evening it is ready to bake the next morning before work.
Step 5 - Baking part 2, freeform baking
Once I had decided to ditch my loaf tin and to bake a classic round loaf I needed to find some new kitchen kit to turn into sourdough baking equipment. My first port of call was to use a pizza stone. This worked really well once pre-heated in the oven. Beware - if a pizza stone is not preheated the dough will stick (I speak from experience)! The one drawback that I found with the pizza stone was that because of the high baking temperature the crust of the loaf took on a bit too much colour. I therefore looked for something else to help me achieve the perfect bake.
After lots of googling and a fair amount of youtubing I found out that using a large casserole dish with a tight fitting lid might be the answer I was looking for. We have a large cast iron pan, so I decided to give it a go. The idea of baking bread in a lidded casserole dish seemed strange - would the bread have space to rise? would I need to create steam to help the crust develop? how would I get the loaf in and out? There was only one way to find out!
After figuring out the knack of flipping/tipping/dumping the risen dough into the roasting hot cast pan and slashing the top without burning my hand on the edge of the pot I put the lid on and sent the loaf into the preheated oven. After 30 minutes with the lid left on I pulled the pot out of the oven and lifted the lid - wow - awaiting me was a lovely surprise, a well baked loaf hid beneath the cover, all that in needed was a final blast to pick up some more colour on the crust. The result is a golden boule with a crisp but fine crust with a well risen and yielding crumb - sourdough heaven! The final loaf tips out of the pot with no fuss and can cool on a rack (if you have the willpower not to tuck in straight away with butter).
I will post my recipe and starter method in a future post.
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