I always try to eat delicious food. Unfortunately I don't have that much money, so I have to cook a lot of it at home. But thats OK because I love cooking and I love eating at home with my wife. This is a website with my favorite recipes and a little bit of commentary.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Multi Grain Sourdough

I made some sourdough this past weekend based on a recipe I found in The Bread Bible. Both of us agreed this is one of the all time best breads to date. It isn't a true sourdough because it adds a tiny bit of commercial yeast, but it has a nice mild sourdough flavor.
This is an extremely wet dough, 72.7% water.
Multi Grain Sourdough Bread

Sourdough Component

sourdough Starter 2/3 cup (100 g)
bread flour 1/3 cup (50 g)
water 3 1/2 T (50 g)

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit on the counter until nice and bubbly, 3 to 4 hours. If you want to you can put this portion of the recipe in the fridge until you're ready to use it or you can use it right away. If you put it in the fridge, let it warm up for an hour and a half before use.

Final Dough

Sourdough component from above - use all of it
water 1 1/3 cups (300 grams)
bread flour 2 cups (312 grams)
rye flour 2/3 cup (80 grams)
whole wheat flour 6 T (58 grams)
instant yeast 1/2 t (2 grams)
salt 1 1/2 t (12 grams)

Dump everything together in the bowl. Mix everything using the dough hook to form a ball. Cover bowl and let everything sit for 20 minutes. Next kneed at #4 on the kitchen aid for 10 minutes. It will be an extemeley sticky dough.

Let dough rise in a covered bowl until doubled, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Punch the dough down, recover and let rise another hour. You can proceed to baking at this time or you can put it in the fridge overnight to develop flavor. I put mine in the fridge.

Shape dough into a round ball and let it rise in a banneton until doubled - about an hour.

Preheat oven to 475 with the stone on the bottom rack and a cookie sheet on a rack a few notches above. A trick to get the dough onto the stone is to put a piece of parchment paper on a pizza peel or cookie sheet. Invert the dough onto the paper and slide the dough and paper together onto the stone. Drop 1/2 cup ice cubes into the cookie sheet and bake the dough 5 minutes. Reduce heat to 450 and continue baking 20 to 25 minutes, turning halfway through for even cooking. An instant read thermometer inserted in the middle of the dough should read at least 210 degrees. Cool on a wire rack completely before slicing.
It has a very chewy crust and a super nice inside with an interesting texture.