San Francisco sourdough

My San Francisco style sourdough - this is definitely one of the top breads in my baking repertoire. It's incredibly tasty, even though made just with white flour, it has richer flavour than white breads usually have.

The proving/folding proces is hugely satisfying - the dough needs to be folded every hour three times, it continues to prove on a tray in between the folding sessions and every time you look it resembles a fat pillow and feels incredible: elastic and smooth, with nice surface tension.

The starter is a lot of hassle with the raisins in the mix, which then have to be drained and discarded but I think that's what makes the flavour. It's also a very resilient starter - I tend to forget about it for weeks or even a couple of months and it still springs back to life after feeding.

This is a recipe I found in one of Dan Lepard's older books and it's brilliant in terms of results, but I'm not quite sure how authentic it is. I remember seeing recipes for SF SD involving starters in the shape of small lumps of hard dough whose skin you had to break off... All quite unworkable at a glance, unlike Dan's.