BREAD RECIPES

This recipe is from the King Arthur Flour Baking Company Website/Cookbook and is a great easy start to making sourdough.  This whole website is an amazing resource for all bread baking.  This makes one giant loaf (or you can split it into two smaller loaves before the final proof). You need a lot of starter for this one so your starter should be really active.  I usually make a leaven of ready starter so that I have enough for this bread.  Please see my notes in the section just below, entitled “How do I know if my starter is at its peak/ready for harvest?” 

They do recommend that you proof the dough in the fridge for up to 48 hours but I have had success fridge proofing this KA recipe dough for four days – it still baked up lovely! 

KITCHN SOURDOUGH RECIPE

This next recipe is from the Kitchn blog and is a little bit more complicated because 1) it is higher hydration and b) thus yields a little bit more nuanced sourdough flavor.   The higher the hydration, the more airy the bread can get when it is baked.  But high hydration dough is a little bit trickier to work with so that is why sometimes I recommend working your way up to that.  This recipe makes two large loaves.

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I have made this recipe with a few tweaks, which I'll share here.  

Notes on Making Dough:

• Mix 50 grams of water with 1 tablespoon of salt. Set this mixture aside.

• Water – I make my initial mix with 670 grams of lukewarm water.  Mix this water with your active leaven.

• Flour – I use 850 grams of All Purpose flour and 150 grams of Whole Wheat flour.  Mix this in with the leaven/water mixture to form a shaggy dough.

• Cover this initial dough with a kitchen towel and put under your under cabinet light in your kitchen to autolyse (this might not be necessary on a very warm day). 

• Let your dough autolyse for 1 to 4 hours.

• After this time, mix in your salt water mixture with your dough.

• At this time, start your folding dough process (see step 9). Follow the recipe from there.  

• When you get to Step 17 in the Kitchn recipe, I usually do my second proof overnight in the fridge.  Proofing in the fridge has many benefits – this is a good primer on the science of it.  Put your shaped dough into baskets/bannetons and cover with plastic wrap (I put mine into the XL 2 gallon Ziploc bags and then put them in the fridge).  I leave them in the fridge while my oven preheats the next morning and take them out once the oven is ready.  I flip onto parchment paper, score, and then plop into my dutch oven.  Cover and pop into the hot oven.

• When you get to the part where you are actually baking, this is what I do:

  • Preheat my oven to 500 degrees with my covered, empty Dutch ovens in the oven.  Do this for 1 hour.  (Since this recipe makes two loaves at a time, I use both of my Dutch ovens.  If you only have one, just bake one at a time). 

  • Once your oven is ready, turn your proofed dough out onto the parchment paper, score and put into the Dutch oven.  Replace the Dutch oven lid.  Put Dutch oven into the oven.  Bake at 500 degrees with lid on for 20 minutes.

  • After 20 minutes, turn oven down to 450 degrees.  Bake with lid on for 10 more minutes.

  • After 10 minutes, carefully remove the tops of your Dutch ovens and slide a cookie sheet under your Dutch ovens (this will prevent the bottom of your bread from burning). Bake for another 15-20 minutes with no tops on the Dutch ovens.  Keep an eye out, your crust should be darkening up from a gold brown to a more caramelized brown. 

  • After this, turn your oven off and let your bread stay in there for another 10 minutes.

  • Finally, remove Dutch ovens from oven and put your bread on a wire cooling rack for about 20-30 minutes.  Oooh and ahhh, congratulate yourself, and tell your kids to “Come and behold what I have wrought!”  They love this.

CINNAMON RAISIN SOURDOUGH

This recipe nicely dovetails into the Kitchn dough recipe.  Double the amount of cinnamon and raisins because this recipe is for 1 loaf and the Kitchn recipe is for two loaves.

• To make 1 loaf regular SD, 1 loaf cinnamon with this recipe (from my friend Geoff): Make the Kitchn recipe.

• After the autolyse rest, addition of salt and water, and 1 fold and rest cycle, split the dough 50/50 by weight.

• Add 5 grams cinnamon and 90 grams (pre-soak weight) of soaked raisins. 

JALAPENO CHEESE SOURDOUGH BREAD