SUSAN'S SIMPLE SOURDOUGH CHALLENGE - TAKE TWO

On October 4th, ehanner's blog presented Susan's Simple Small Sourdough Challenge. Eric's challenge was simple - make Susan's bread and report back. My first attempt at Susan's bread was posted to Susan's Simple Sourdough Challenge - Take One on November 7, 2009. I was so enthralled with her bread I made it a second time a few days later.

Susan's basic recipe and method can be found on her blog post of April 17, 2008. I would also recommend you check out Susan's Blog for variations and lots of great photos of her bread.

The ingredients are straightforward: sourdough starter, unbleached bread flour (either regular or high gluten), whole grain flour, water and salt. Dough hydration is 70%.

What really makes this bread special is her method (minimal kneading and periodic stretch-and-folds, a long bulk fermentation and, after shaping, an overnight proof in the refrigerator). The only change I made to her method was to add a one hour autolyse at the very beginning (combine all the flour and water, roughly mix and let rest, covered, at room temperature, for one hour). After the autolyse, the starter and salt were mixed in and from that point I followed her instructions.

The dough can be shaped as a boule or a batard. Susan usually shapes it as a boule and covers the dough with a heat-proof metal bowl for the first 15 minutes of the bake. (If shaped as a batard, she suggests using the lid of a turkey roaster). Covered baking eliminates the need to steam the oven and results in great oven spring.

For this trial, I used my 100% hydration sourdough starter, unbleached bread flour, rye flour (home milled), ordinary tap water and sea salt. I shaped the dough as a batard (I prefer this shape) and used the bottom of an enameled metal turkey roaster as the cover.

This is a wonderful bread. A nice sourdough flavor, open crumb, crispy crust. Here are photos...

Kneaded Dough Ready for Bulk Ferment

My Rising Container - a plastic basket lined with a cotton tea towel rubbed with rice flour

Risen Dough Ready to be Baked.

On the Peel (a cookie sheet) and Slashed

Cooling After the Bake

Crumb (photo is a little blurry - sorry!)

Last weekend I gave Susan’s Sourdough Boule another try after it had come out with a crumb that was too dense the first time around. Since the ingredients were exactly the same as in one of Susan’s recipes (I used KA bread flour and pre-soaked flax seeds), the culprit could only be the starter. This time I made sure it was up to speed and strength after feeding it twice before using it and it happily produced the desired results:

It tasted wonderfully and I'll certainly make it again!

The other bread I made was the Sourdough Seed Bread (“Bread” p. 176). There had been two recent posts about this great recipe and I really wanted to try it. We absolutely LOVE it. My husband thought that my loaves should be bigger than the recent ones I made, thus I baked the entire recipe into one huge loaf, it weighed in at 1.7 kg (3.75 lbs)!!

A bit of a challenge to slice... This bread will be a staple in my repertoire, no doubt!