Details
Based on a recipe from Bethseda Bakers Rising Time – around 4 hours Bake for 50mins Temperature 200 C (lower in a fan oven)
Ingredients
500g Strong Bread Flour
a mix of white and Wholeweat Bread Flour works well
310g Water 140g Starter ( important that the total ‘liquid’ is about 450g) 8g Salt Some Oil
Method (from Bethseda Bakers, adapted slightly by Jane!) Jane’s quick notes: To refresh the starter, add about 100g of plain flour, and 100g water, mix it in and leave it until it starts to bubble. Then put half back in the jar for next time. ( Add more flour and water if you need to create more starter for other recipes or for a friend…) Now make the starter up to about 450g with water, and add 500g flour. Add your salt and oil now. I like the dough to be softer by keeping it more wet than dry; insufficient water will make it harder work when kneading. Knead for 10 minutes. Put it in a warmish place for a rise of 3 hours, and in the fridge for a slow 8 hr rise. (To stop it sticking, use a tiny bit of oil, wiped around the bowl.) Knock it back and knead again. The longer you knead, the longer the gluten stretches and, I find, the finer the grain. Put the dough in the tin you will be baking it in to rise for the second time. The second rise often goes quicker, about 90 minutes minimum. You can slow this down in the fridge, and it can take all night. You can add a topping of seeds at this stage – dampen with water or milk or egg, and a nice touch is to mix in a bit of coarse salt – wonderful as it the flavours explode on your tongue! Bake at 200 degrees C or 180 in a fan oven – check after 45 minutes, tap for a hollow sound. Turn it out onto a rack and cover with a tea-towel – this will allow it to cool, but keeps the crusts from becoming hard. Delicious with anything!
…… Long version, the original is in the picture – click if you want to see the original. I think it is a bit wasteful, and not good for a quick reference!
Bethesdabakers 10-Year-Old Starter This starter is made up of equal weights of flour and water and this ratio should be maintained when it is refreshed. When you get home (or within the next 24 hours) refresh the starter with additional water and flour at a ratio of 1 starter: 2 water: 2 flour – the simplest way is take the jar of starter, mix in 10Og water and then 10Og flour. Cover and leave at room temperature. Over the next few hours bubbles should start to appear and after 6-8 hours it should be very bubbly. If it isn’t, and looks rather sluggish, repeat the process until it does look lively, then refresh and put in the fridge. ( You can dis guard some if you need to at each refresh) Note: The timings are approximate. For most people it is easier to refresh in the morning and in the evening rather than sticking to 6-8 hours. The reason for discarding is because at a ratio of 1:2:2 your house would soon be full of buckets of starter. Once you are up and running you can easily adapt quantities for minimum waste, or use the excess in batters, pancakes, etc. If you keep your starter in the fridge it only needs to be refreshed weekly (and will, in fact, be fine for a number of weeks). The day before you bake take the starter out of the fridge in the morning and refresh it using the 1:2:2 ratio. You need to calculate roughly how much you need for baking plus a little left over so you have starter for your next bake. Example: if you are baking the Classic Sourdough recipe that comes with this sheet, you might take 25g starter and mix in 50g water and 50g flour. Leave covered at room temperature until the evening and then refresh at a ratio of 1:1:1 (the first ratio is to produce quantity; this one is to produce strength). So in this example, to your 125g starter add 125g water and 125g flour. Leave at room temperature overnight. In the morning take what you need for the bread dough, and remember to save enough for next time. The most common fault with beginners is they starve their starter. They imagine that adding large quantities of water and flour will over-dilute the starter whereas natural yeasts are voracious little buggers and like lots of food. Keep the 1:1:1 ratio as the minimum refreshment Baking the Bread First weigh the water into a large mixing bowl, then the starter, then the flours and salt. Stir with your hand until the mixture comes together then move your hand along the dough squeezing it through your fingers several times, turning the dough and repeating until everything is reasonably well incorporated (about a minute’s work). Let it stand for 5 minutes. Lightly oil your hands and a small section of your work surface. Turn out the dough “and knead it by gripping the near end with the knuckles of one hand and pushing the mass of the dough away from you with the heel of your other hand. Roll the far end of the dough back towards you to form a cylinder, turn the dough a quarter and repeat. You only need to knead the dough ten times. Rest for 5 minutes then repeat. Rest a further 5 minutes and repeat. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with cling film. Leave it to ferment at room temperature for about 4 hours (or several hours or overnight in the fridge), Lightly flour your work surface – just enough to stop the dough sticking. Form the dough into a ball: press the dough out lightly with your fingers to form a circle. Imagine it’s a clock – fold the edges at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock to just beyond the centre and press firmly with the heel of your hand to seal. Turn the whole thing round so that the end nearest to you is now furthest away. Fold in the left and right edges then 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock to give you a round then seal firmly again with the heel of your hand. Turn it over. Cup your hands around the ball and stretch the dough underneath itself repeatedly while turning the ball. You will see the dough tighten while the dough dragging on the work surface seals the folds. Press on the top of the ball to complete the seal. Improvise a proving basket. Either use a cane basket about 8 inches in diameter, or use a colander or a similar sized bowl. Line the container with a tea towel and sprinkle it liberally with rye flour. Place the dough ball in the container seam side up, fold over the corners of the tea towel and cover with polythene. Allow to prove at room temperature for about four hours. You can monitor the doughs’ progress by lightly pressing it with a floured finger. In the early stages the indentation will close rapidly but this becomes slower as it proves. The perfect stage is when there is still a little push left in the dough. This takes experience to recognise so for your first effort give the dough 3.5-4 hours. Preheat the oven to 200C, Gas 6. Gently turn out the dough onto a floured baking sheet. Slash the dough with a simple pattern – just two lines or crisscross – using a safety razor or scalloped bread knife. Bake for 50 minutes then cool on a wire rack. The most common fault that beginners experience is that their loaf spreads into a flying saucer instead of rising in the oven. If this happens don’t worry, it will taste great and if you persevere it will come right. Don’t look for a simple answer – it just takes practice. More Information This is the first recipe passed to me by the person who gave me the sour-dough starter. It makes a soft, easily handled, forgiving dough that behaves itself in the oven. It’s a good basic all-round bread and makes fantastic bruschetta. You don’t need any specialist equipment to start making bread. Digital scales are a huge help and are pretty cheap these days. You can put your mixing bowl on the scales add the first ingredient, zero the read-out, add the second, etc. Get used to metric, weigh everything in grams, including the water (but a handy thing to know: 1cl = 1 gram). A dough scraper (bench knife) is useful when you need to free your dough from the work surface, semi-circular plastic scrapers are also well worth having to hand. A range of cheap plastic bowls will not go wrong + baskets in which to prove dough but these can be improvised. For this recipe you need three types of flour: strong white bread flour, wholemeal wheat flour and wholemeal rye flour. Doves Farm is widely available and I suggest you use organic. I’m not saying the flavour is better but the means of production is better for the soil, there is no run-off of nitrates into rivers and, anyway, why eat pesticides?
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