Sourdough Sandwich bread.

There is not that much talk here about enriched sourdough breads so I thought I should try a writeup on a loaf od bread that I have been baking for the last 6 or 8 months every couple of weeks. The loaf is a kind of "Bran Sandwich" bread, a soft whiteish bread all leavend with sourdough starter. I have been making this mostly for my grandma who likes to eat hommemade bread but is not that big a fan of ryes and other "heavier" breads, she also is very fond of toasting and I feel that this bread is great for toasting!

This bread cointains a preferment with milk wich I know some people might have som disagreement with . However you can leave the milk out and then use dry milk in the final dough if you remember that milk is about 85% water thus all fluids must be lowered 15% and that amount should be replaced with dry milk.

Bran Toast 1 loaf

Step One, Making the preferment:

Combine:

• 30g starter (100% hydration)
• 30g coarse rye
• 10g wheat bran
• 60g AP flour
• 100g milk.

This is what it looks like before mixing:

I let this mixture sit out for about 10-12 hours, until you see the signs of your culture beeing mature for leavening. The aroma of this preferment is very interesting, sweet and sometimes a bit like cheese.

When mature:

Dough:

• All of the preferment
• 275g AP flour
• 170g milk
• 30g hard fat (butter, lard, shortening..)
• 8-9g salt
• 15g sugar

I leave the butter out of the mix until I have gotten some gluten developed and then work it in, the percentage is roughly 7.5% so it isn´t necessary but I do so anyways. The dough should be easy to develop due to the acids in the preferment.

I let dough ferment for 2.5 hours, wich I think is sufficent as the prefermented flour amount is 29% and this makes for a short ferment and proof.

After fermentation shape the dough into desired shape, loaf pan or rolls or even free form. My pan measures 4 1/4" X 11" X 2.5".

Then proof for another 2.5 hours. Before baking do a couple of snips with a pair of scissors down the middle of the loaf as seen here: http://www.broodaandebasis.nl/content_images/bakkeninbeeld/30.jpg

The bread is placed in a 400F oven and baked with steam until done, 40-45 minutes roughly. This is how my loaf came out, a little bit under proofed you can see from the overly enthusiatic oven spring but all in all a fine piece of bread!

I hope that someone will bake this, enjoy and all in all be as happy with this bread as I am. If there is any desire for it I can post pictures of the crumb but seeing as this is a sandwich loaf it should be fairly close textured without beeing dense. You can find larger versions of the pictures at this adress: http://s298.photobucket.com/albums/mm260/Kuremyr/