Danni3ll3's blog

This recipe is from Sourdough: Recipes for Rustic Fermented Breads, Sweets, Savories, and More from
Sarah Owens. She won the James Beard Award for 2016 in baking books. I don't own the book but I found a copy of the recipe online.

I changed the method a bit to allow for an autolyse with just flour but the dough was really stiff and I probably should have added the oat soaker in at the same time. Anyhow, this was my method which differs a bit from the book.

1. Make levain with 40 g water, 30 g starter and 40 grams spelt. Let sit overnight.

2. Make soaker with 140 g rolled oats (old fashioned) and 275 g boiling water. Let that sit overnight too.

3. Next morning, autolyse 245 g of warm water and 45 g honey with 445 g flour and 105 g spelt. I let it sit for one hour.

4. I mixed in the 110 g of levain, 415 g of soaker and 16 g of salt. I added 25 g of water here to adjust the feel of the dough. I did slaps and folds to integrate the oats right through the dough.

5. I started the bulk fermentation with folds every half hour and this went on and on and on. The dough just didn't seem to  want to rise at all. 7 and a half hours later, the dough had risen about 30% and was finally ready to be divided and pre-shaped.

6. I pre-shaped using the letter fold method and let sit for a half hour before doing the final shape. I shaped it again using the letter fold method and put it into floured baskets.

7. I let it proof on the counter for a half hour (next time I am doing the full hour) and it went into the fridge for an overnight proof.

8. Late the next morning, I baked it in dutch ovens at 500F for 20 minutes, and took off the lid. I realized 10 minutes later that I had not dropped the temp at the 20 minute mark and had taken off the lid instead. So I dropped the temp to 430F and let it bake for another 20 minutes. Once again, I wasn't paying close attention but it worked out anyhow.

The results were a delicious bread with a super fluffy crumb. The one loaf disappeared in one day. Mind you, the loaves were tiny and next time, I am doubling the recipe and not forgetting to autolyse the oat soaker along with the flour.

Crumb shot:

With butter and honey:

Ru007's post on her Sourdough with Polenta, Sunflower seeds and Pepitas motivated me to try her recipe since it looked amazing! I didn't have any Polenta but thought that cornmeal might be close enough and with her encouragement, I went ahead and used cornmeal.

The plan was to double her recipe and be done but my starter was 100% hydration as opposed to 80% like hers and my math got wonky when I started using the baker's percentages instead of the actual weights after I had soaked my cornmeal. No matter, I am really happy how it turned out.

Procedure:

Make Soaker: Pour 220 g of boiling water over 80 g of medium grind cornmeal and let sit for several hours (5 hours or so)

Levain: Feed starter with a 1:2:2 ratio of part rye, part whole grain flour and water. Let sit 6 hours.

Add ins: Toast 75 grams each of hulled sunflower and pumpkin seeds in frying pan. Let cool.

Autolyse: Mix 275 g of cornmeal soaker with 300 g wholegrain wheat flour, 700 g unbleached all purpose flour, and 560 g of water. Let sit for an hour.

Mix dough: Sprinkle 22 g of sea salt over the dough and add 200 g of the levain. Pinch and fold to incorporate. I also added 20 grams of water here because the dough felt too stiff. 

Fermentation: Do a series of 4/5 folds every half hour at the beginning of fermentation and every hour later on until risen by 30-50% which took about 5 hours. Add in seeds during the second set of folds. I used the slap and fold method to get the seeds evenly distributed since the pinch and fold method wasn't doing it for me and my hand was getting sore.

Divide and Pre-shape: Divide the dough into two loaves and used the letter fold method to pre-shape. The loaves sat uncovered on the counter for about 40 minutes.

Shape: Flip the balls upside down and do the letter fold method again. I got a nice tight skin by pulling the dough towards me on the counter. Let it sit for a few seconds and then put it seam side up in floured (all purpose and rice) baskets. Put the baskets into plastic bags to prevent the dough from drying out.

Proof: Let proof on the counter for one hour and then into the fridge for 20 hours and 20 minutes. 

Baking: Heat oven with baking stone and dutch ovens to 500F for 45 minutes. When oven is ready, turn out dough onto counter sprinkled with cornmeal. Remove dutch ovens from oven and sprinkle bottom with cornmeal. Gently drop loaves in dutch ovens and score with razor blade. Bake at 500F for 20 minutes with lid on, drop oven temp to 450 and bake for 10 minutes longer. Remove lid and bake for another 30 minutes.

I let it cool for about 20 hours before cutting it up to go into the freezer in slices. I am really pleased with the crumb!

I ate the ends and I was really pleased with the flavour. Thank you Ru007 for your post and your inspiration!

My own version of a Chad Robertson's Tartine 3 recipe. It has 20% of Brûlée Creek partially sifted whole grain flour and 10% dark rye as well as 120 grams of toasted sesame seeds. Total flour amount not including Levain was 1000 grams. I used 150 grams of 100% rye/wholewheat levain that was fed 3 times after being taken out of the fridge. The dough hydration was 75% not including the levain. I believe it was 77% including levain. 

Toasted the sesame seeds in a dry frying pan and then used 50 g of the water to hydrate them.

Autolysed the flours for one hour, added 25 g of salt and the 150 g of Levain, then did six sets of folds over the next several  hours.  After the sixth fold, I had to go out so into the fridge, the dough went.

When I came back, I did the pre-shape, let rest for 30 minutes then shaped. Both were done using the letter fold method. I seem to get better tension with this method. Put the boules seam side up (I usually do seam side down) in baskets and I let rise for about 2.5 hours on the counter.

I was thinking of baking them right then but the poke method told me they were not ready. So as it was getting late and I had to be up early for a dog show, I put the two loaves in the fridge and decided to forget about them until I could properly deal with them the next day. 

So today, once we got home from the show (daughter's dog got one point!), I went ahead and baked them. 20 minutes at 500 in covered Dutch oven, 10 minutes at 450 and then 28 minutes with the lid off. I am finding that I like to bake my breads for about one hour lately. 

Oh the scoring is thanks to Trevor Wilson's Instagram videos. They inspired me to try his favourite scoring for boules. I got some pretty good ears!

I am very pleased with this one since I did my own thing regarding the method (basically, stuck it in the fridge when I didn't have time to deal with it). I will post a crumb shot when we cut into it. 

Update: Crumb shots

Nice moist crumb! Even hubby commented on it! I will be making this one again!

I was surfing this site and saw the idea of 1-2-3 sourdough and thought "Why not?" since I had some levain left over from my other bake. I built up what I had left in two builds to 288 g of 100% unbleached flour starter.

I autolysed 540 g of water with 64 g dark rye, 128 g whole grain spelt, 50 g buckwheat, 200 g whole grain whole wheat and 422 g of Rogers unbleached no additives all purpose flour. This sat for an hour or so. I then added the 288 g of starter and 20 g of salt. The dough was pretty stiff so I added the 36 g of reserved water plus additional water until the dough felt like I thought it should. That came out to be a total of 60 g additional water. I guess the whole grain absorbed more water than the formula allows for.

I took a page out of DAB's method and did 3 sets of 30 slaps and folds 20 minutes apart, then 3 sets of 4 folds 20 minutes apart. The dough rested until it was about 30% risen. 

I pre-shaped using the letter fold method and let it sit for about 45 minutes. Then I shaped it and put it in my proofing baskets. It proofed for about an hour and a half. I may have under proofed it a bit but the poke test told me it was ready when it looked like it was about there. These loaves were smaller than usual so it was a bit hard to judge if they were ready.

I baked it not quite as per my usual method because I was busy doing something else and lost track of time. It was baked at 500 degrees for 25 minutes, 5 minutes at 450 degrees and then I took the lid off for another 17 minutes until nice and dark.

I don't have a crumb shot but apparently it was quite good according to my daughter who took a loaf to work. They devoured it. I still have one loaf left but I may be giving it away so I might not have a crumb shot at all. 

Overall, I am happy this turned out so this is one more trick up my sleeve if I want a loaf in one day and have left over levain.

This was inspired from the Tartine 3 porridge breads. I decided to try doing my own thing and to let go of watching the clock and watching the dough instead. It actually worked pretty well.

My starter is a 66% rye starter that is kept in the fridge as per DAB's method. I started with 11 grams and did 3 builds before using it with my dough. The flour used was high extraction flour from a local miller.

The day before making the dough, I toasted 200 g of Bob's Red Mill 10 grain cereal in a frying pan and then cooked it with 400 g of water. I ended up with 500 grams of cooked grains which cooled overnight.

As to the dough itself, I autolysed 100 g light rye, 100 g whole grain spelt, 100 g whole grain gamut, 200 g high extraction flour and 500 all purpose flour, which is similar to american bread flour due to the high protein content, with 700 g water. This sat for a couple of hours. 

I then added 200 g of 100% hydration levain from above and 23 g of salt. I folded the dough for a few minutes to incorporate everything. About 10 minutes later, I added the 500 g of cooked grains as well as 50 grams of water. Mixing it using the pincer as well as the fold method didn't seem to be distributing things evenly so I resorted to the slap and fold method until everything as homogeneous. I let it rest for another 10 minutes and then did another set of folds. I rushed the folding times because I had to go out. The dough was left at room temperature for a couple of hours to start rising and then it was put into the fridge until the next day.

The next day, the dough had risen about 30%. I did a cold pre-shape, let it rest for about an hour, shaped it and then let it proof in my proofing baskets. When it looked about 50% risen (wild guess on my part), I baked it in a covered dutch oven for 20 minutes at 500 degrees, then 10 minutes at 450 degrees, and then took the lid off. It continued to bake for another 30 minutes before I got the colour I wanted.

I am pretty happy with the crumb. It is nice and moist and the crust was nice and crispy. We dove into one loaf about an hour after baking and the toasted flavour really came through. Here is the required crumb shot.

I think that I am getting a better crumb by using the letter fold method of shaping. I used this for both the pre-shape and the shaping and seemed to get a better skin on my boules. 

I will definitely be making this again.

I like seeds in bread and Chad Robertson's Seeded Bread really intrigued me with the quantity and the variety of seeds in this particular bread. I have long given up on using Robertson's flour quantities and methods but I do use his creations for inspiration. The methods are right out of FWSY for the most part.

The levain was created out of 40 grams starter that had been fed the night before, 200 grams high extraction flour and 160 grams of water to make a 80% levain. I left that to rise for approximately 6 and a half hours at a room temperature of 74/76 F (the room got warmer as the day went by).

I toasted the following seeds in a frying pan:

100 g flaxseeds

100 g sesame seeds

100 g poppy seeds

50 g sunflower seeds

50 pumpkin seeds

50 g caraway

The flax seeds and the caraway were toasted separately from the rest because the flax seeds needed to soak in 180 g of hot water and the caraway seeds were to be coarsely ground after toasting. The remainder were toasted together in the frying pan. Once the flax seeds had cooled down somewhat, I added the rest of the seeds and let them absorb all of the liquid.

Autolyse consisted of:

300 g high extraction flour

400 g all unbleached all purpose flour

100 g wholegrain wheat flour

26 g of wheatgerm

42 g of vital wheat gluten (I added this because I thought that with the weight of all of these seeds, the dough needed all the help it could get)

660 g of water at 85F

I let this autolyse for one hour. Then I added:

22 g of salt

1/2 tsp yeast

360 g of the above levain

I mixed everything well by hand and let the dough rest for 10 minutes. Then I added the seek soaker and a bit more water because the dough seemed a bit dry. I didn't measure the water but it was probably a few tablespoons. I really had to work to get all the seeds incorporated in the dough. It was a huge quantity of seeds. My dough temperature ended up being 77F.

I did four sets of stretches and folds a half hour apart. The dough was slightly more than doubled about 3 hours later. It was very poofy (is that a word?) and felt awesome!

I divided the dough, shaped it and put it in the baskets. I didn't use a bench rest. I tried to get a tight skin on the boules but I over floured my counter and the dough just couldn't get a grip. The result was very inflated boules that just about filled my baskets.

I used my little marked jar to estimate the rise but I got nervous when it reached about 1.5 times the volume. I did the finger poke test and it told me that the dough was ready to go into the oven. 

The oven with the dutch ovens was preheated to 500F so I sprinkled cornmeal in the bottom of the pots, dropped in the loaves, spritzed the loaves with water and sprinkled seeds on top. I usually put the seeds in the proofing baskets but I forgot and in hindsight, my baskets are pretty open weaved so I might have lost a lot of the seeds through the weave. 

The loaves baked at 500F for 20 minutes, then the temperature was dropped to 450F for 10 more minutes. I took the lids off and baked for another 25 minutes.

Notes: Spritzing the water on the loaves to make the seeds stick worked just fine. I didn't get a huge oven rise but it was decent enough to get a good crumb. I am not sure but I think that even with me watching the dough and my little handy dandy graduated proofing tool, I may have over proofed it a bit even though it looked like it has risen only one and a half times. The loaves spread out quite a bit when I turned them out and looked like they deflated a bit when dropped in the dutch oven. By the way, the taste is excellent in spite of the huge amount of caraway seeds in this combo. I must admit though that if I make this again, I won't be including the caraway seeds. They overpower the rest of the seeds in terms of flavour.

I have made this in the past and due to hubby requesting it again, I oven fried a full pound of bacon and made it again.

This bread is a Ken Forkish (FWSY) pure sourdough with an overnight fermentation. It is shaped and proofed at room temperature the next morning. It uses pretty well all unbleached flour except for the local partially sifted flour that I used in the levain. I think that next time,  I will try to increase the amount of whole grain in it. Anyhow, here is the required crumb shot which I managed to take before it all disappeared. 

I had read that Spelt fermented and proofed quickly but I thought that it couldn't be any faster than whole wheat. Boy, was I wrong! I took the combo of flours from Tartine 3 and used the amounts and method of the 75% wholewheat bread from FWSY. 

1. Fed levain local milled partially sifted flour to create 80% hydration levain. Let rise for 6 hours.

2. Autolysed 300 g Rogers No Additives Unbleached Flour, 100 g Brûlée Creek Partially Sifted Flour, 300 g Whole Spelt flour that I sifted, and 100 g whole spelt flour with 660 g of water at 92F for 30 minutes.

3. Added 21g salt, scant 1/2 tsp instant yeast and 360 g of 80% hydration levain. Considering what happened next, I probably did not need the yeast. Used pincer and folds method to incorporate. 

4. Did 3 sets of folds at the beginning of fermentation. Dough should have taken 5 hours to rise 2.5 times it volume  but it was done after 3 and a half hours. 

5. I divided it, shaped and put into proofing baskets. I forgot to put spelt flakes in as I used the sifted bran in the baskets. Into plastic bags and then the fridge they went for a planned 12 hour nap. 

6. Almost three hours later, I decided to take a peek to see how they were coming along. I was shocked to see them fully risen. I did the poke test and the dough slowly sprang most of the way back. 

7. I rushed to turn in the oven and heated it to 500F. I gave it another 15 minutes once it reached temperature before I dropped the loaves on parchment rounds in the preheated DO. Baked at 500F for 20 minutes, dropped temp, waited 10 minutes before removing the lids, and baked for another 25 minutes. 

I think the loaves were very slightly over proofed. I got decent oven spring but not huge. Thank goodness I checked those loaves before I went to bed. These would have been a disaster if I had waited till the morning to bake. I will post a crumb shot when they get sliced. 

I used a combo of methods for this bread and aside from not much oven rise, I am pretty happy with it.

The recipe is out of Tartine 3 and the methods are from Dabrownman and Trevor J Wison from here. This was my plan. 

1. Build a 2 stage Levain two days before baking and refrigerate to soften the bran. 
2. Mix all flours, cold water, salt the evening before. Put in fridge till bed time when I pull it out to warm up slowly overnight.
3. In morning, mix in Levain. Fold every hour until dough is 30 to 50% bigger. 4 to 6 hours.
4. Divide, preshape, rest 30 to 60 minutes, shape, proof in basket till risen about 80%.
5. Score and bake as usual.

Well life happens and the flour, water, salt mixture spent the night in the fridge. I pulled it out at 6:30 am. Forgot to pull out the levain too so it came out at 11:45 or so. Mixed the levain and dough together at 2:30 pm. Did 6 sets of folds over the next 6 hours until dough had risen about 30%. Preshaped and it rested for 45 minutes. I think I need to work on my shaping as I didn't feel I was getting a nice tight skin on my boules. Anyhow, I shaped the boules, rolled in Kamut flakes and into the proofing baskets they went seam side down. I used a bit of dough in a graduated glass to judge the proofing. 2 hours later, they seemed ready so they got baked in the dutch oven as per my usual method with a circle of parchment paper on the bottom. 

The bread turned out very substantial and moist. A good stick to your ribs kind of bread. It has a slight tangy flavour that both hubby and I like. I am not sure what happened with the oven rise but these have been the flatest loaves I have ever baked. It could have been too much time soaking the flours or my shaping technique or both. Either way, it tastes good and I am learning so it is all good. 

I decided to go back to Tartine Bread's Country Loaf since I had quite a bit of success the last time I made it. I need some bread for a staff snack this week (working a stretch of 8 days even though I am retired) and wanted something a bit different so I chose the Country Loaf with Sesame.

1. Used DBM method of building up the levain over three feedings so started with 15 grams of starter, 15 grams of partially sifted flour from a local miller and 15 grams of warm water. Next feeding about 4 hours later was 30 grams of flour and 30 grams of water. Last feeding was 60 grams of flour and 60 grams of water. Then let it sit in my lit oven with the door cracked until it doubled which took a bit longer than 4 hours. 

2. Mixed 700 g of water at 80 degrees F with 200 grams of the levain and then added 900g of Roger's unbleached no additives flour and 100 g of WW flour from our local miller, Brulée Creek.

3. Let sit/autolyse for 25 minutes. (Yes, I know autolyse is only water and flour, no levain but go fight that battle with Robertson. I just do what I am told. ;)  )

4. Added 20 g of salt and 50 g of water. Used pincer method and folding to incorporate. Dough temp was 80.2. Put into oven with door cracked open and light on to start fermenting.

5. Did first fold a half hour later and at that time, added half a cup of sesame seeds (recipe called for a cup but not having had sesame bread, I decided to thread lightly). Seeds were previously toasted in a frying pan and left to cool. Used pincer method and folding to distribute the seeds evenly.

6. Continued to do stretches and folds every half hour for a total of 6 sets of folds. Total fermenting time so far was 3 hours.

7. Read on another blog that a trick to see if the dough was ready was to tilt the bucket and see if the dough pulled away from the side easily. Mine wasn't so followed the same path as the person on the blog and left it alone for another hour and a half in the oven. By then, the dough had easily grown by at least 30% and felt nice and billowy (is that a word?).

8. Divided, preshaped and gave it a half hour rest. Shaped it, rolled it in raw sesame seeds and put it in the proofing baskets seam side up.

9. Put it in the fridge for overnight proofing (11.25 hours). Took fridge temperature - 40.5 F. Not sure if that is totally accurate as my instant read thermometer changed very quickly once it hit room temperature air but at least I got an idea of what the temp is in there. Seems to be a bit high so I know to stick to 10-11 hour proofing times if I do overnight proofing.

10. Heated oven and dutch ovens to 500F for 45 minutes. Pulled the loaves out of the fridge and used the parchment paper sling to transfer the loaves to the DO. Makes a lot less mess than flouring the counter and then dropping the loaves in the DO like Ken Forkish does. I scored the loaves before putting into the DO.

11. Baked at 500F for 20 minutes, dropped the temp to 450F, baked a further 10 minutes and took the lid off. Loaves showed decent although not huge oven spring. I think I need to stick to 10 hours for proofing in the fridge. Baked the loaves for a further 25 minutes although the loaves never got really dark. Might be due to the amount of white flour in the dough.

I waited several hours before cutting one loaf up to freeze. I am super happy with the crumb.

It tasted even better than it smelled. Now, I understand why my friend loves Sesame breads. These are definitely to be repeated. I may try the Tartine 3 version which includes more WW flour (200 g vs 100 g), more hydration and leave out the wheat germ. I am wondering if the wheat germ might be weighing down the loaves that I am making out of that book. Anyhow, that will be for another time.

Here it is sliced. Yes, I do love those huge holes. That is what I am striving for!

Danni, one happy baker!