Do Sourdough: Slow Bread for Busy Lives (Do Books) by Andrew Whitley

Author:Andrew Whitley [Whitley, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: The Do Book Company
Published: 2014-04-27T04:00:00+00:00

Overnight No-knead Sourdough

Ingredients Weight

grams oz

Rye starter (old) 5 0.2

Wholemeal wheat flour 150 5

White wheat flour 450 16

Sea salt 8 0.25

Water (22-25ºC/72-77ºF) 400 14

Total 1013 35

Note: 1 millilitre of water weighs 1 gram

That’s not a misprint: only 5 grams (about a level teaspoon or a pea-sized piece) of sourdough starter is needed. It doesn’t have to be fresh, but it is best from a source that has already proved itself in action, as it were. If you are using a relatively young starter, increase the amount to 10 grams.

Method

Mix the starter (straight from the fridge is fine) with the warm water and add the flour and salt. Mix in a bowl until all the flour is wet, turn the dough out onto the table and work it for a minute until any lumps have gone. This is not really kneading, just a thorough mixing, and it should take no longer than a minute, or two at the most. Note that this is a pretty wet dough (75 per cent hydration). It needs to be, to allow the very small initial number of yeast cells to multiply and ‘pump’ enough carbon dioxide gas to raise the dough without too much resistance from a tight gluten structure.

Gather the dough into as smooth a lump as you can and either place it in a prepared tin or dunk it in brown rice flour and put it in a proving basket.

Place the tin or basket in a large polythene bag which can be slightly inflated (like blowing up a balloon) in order to prevent contact with the dough. Leave it at room temperature for a couple of hours if possible and then transfer to a cooler place (10–12°C/50–54°F) for 16 hours or so. Unless the loaf has risen fully by this time, bring it back into a warm place to finish proving. Timing will depend, as usual, on the vigour of the starter and the actual temperature prevailing. It may take longer than 20 hours in total. In fact, it can be rather convenient if it takes about 24 hours to rise fully. That way, you could make it mid- evening one day and bake it mid-evening the next.

The fully proved dough will be pretty fragile, so take care when turning it out of a proving basket, or be careful not to knock the tin on the way to the oven.

Baking temperature and time is much the same as for any plain loaf such as the basic wheat sourdough bread in Chapter 3, so 40 to 50 minutes for a 1kg loaf and a bit less for half-size ones. Start at 230°C (or as high as your oven will go) and turn the heat down by 20°C after 10 minutes’ baking.

What, no production sourdough?

As you will have spotted, this is an all-in-one process. It goes straight from Stage 1, the starter, to Stage 3, the final dough. Apart from saving time and complication, this has some implications that are worth noting:

- We are, in effect, making a slow production sourdough with a bit of salt in it and then baking it.

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