A simple bread to start with
My little sourdough baking series continue. I wanted to share a recipe that I use all the time and and that I think it very easy.
Before we start, I recommend to always use a kitchen scale because that will make the ingredients more precise. Since flour can be differently packed and milled that can really mess up the ratio if you don’t weigh it. However, if you don’t have a scale, 1 dl of regular wheat flour weights approximately 60g.
For two bread
Day 1 evening
60g sourdough starter
100 g wheat flour (high protein)
100 g water
Day 2 morning
700g water
400g spelt flour
450g wheat flour (high protein)
100g spelt flour (whole grain)
Mix all the ingredients including the mix you made yesterday and let it rest for 40 min to 1 hour.
Dissolve 20g salt with 25g water before adding it to the dough and knead it in.
Let the dough proof for 1-2 hours and during that time make 4 folds every 30 min. There are different ways to make folds but i usually fold the dough from left to right and top to bottom. Like this.
Time to shape it. Divide the dough into two parts. I usually use this style. After the shape let them proof for 30 min.
Put the two breads in two tins and let the bread proof. This may take 3-5 hours depending on the room’s temperature, so keep an eye on them.
Set the oven on 250 °C. It’s important to let the oven become properly warm. Brush the loafs with water and add for example some sesame seeds or sunflower seeds on top.
When it’s time to bake the loafs: place the tins in the oven. Also, pour some water and put a pair of ice cubes on an oven plate and place it low in the oven. Bake for 20 min and then open the oven to let out some of the steam. Lower the temperature to 200 °C and bake for 25 min more.
Enjoy!
A short note on proofing.
How you bread proofs depends on a lot of factors for example how cold/ warm your kitchen is. Some times the rising process should be done in the fridge which extends the rising time but the flavours have a lot of time to develop. So everything depends on the conditions you have. For example, a bread may have a rinsing time on 6 hours but your bread has become over-fermented (when the dough has risen to double size but then collapses) in your warm kitchen. You need to learn how your conditions affect the baking.