Sourdough baking

I am including a recipe that I wrote up for my niece.

This is a recipe that I have been perfecting over the last several months to work with my weekday schedule. The timing of the recipe is perfect for when you just don’t have time to put in all of the steps. It is an All-In-One recipe so all of your ingredients go in at the same time.

Ingredients 810 grams bread flour - I use King Arthur 90 grams einkorn - Jovial brand is my go to and available at Whole Foods 18 grams salt - fine sea salt combines nicely 180 grams starter - Feed 1:3:3 the morning you are going to put your dough together.1 603 grams water - room temperature

Mix all of your flour and salt well with a whisk then add your starter and water and then mix using a pull and fold motion until it is combined and then continue for a bit. I go for a total of 4 minutes. What I do to keep the dough from forming a skin and drying out is cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and then cover that with a plate

In 1 hour do your first stretch and fold. With my gluten strengthening moves I go less aggressively as I go along. I am stretching fairly aggressively on the first set. Pulling as far as the dough will let me without tearing and rotating the bowl 90o and then repeating 3 more times. After 30 minutes I do set 2 of the stretch and folds. On this set I pull only until it covers the mass of the dough. 30 minutes later I do the 3rd set of stretch and folds. This time I only stretch about half way across the bulk of the dough.

When I finish the 3rd set of S & Fs I put my dough in a straight sided bowl where I can see the progress of the rise. You are shooting for a total increase in bulk of 30%. Then put the whole thing in the fridge for 24 hours. My fridge stays at 34oF and during that time the dough will have continued rising a bit and will be at roughly 50% increase.

Now is time to divide the dough into 2 equal size masses and do a preshape on the counter. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes and shape into boules or batards and put them into your bannetons. Then bag them up and back to the fridge for 24 more hours.2

I preheat my Dutch oven at 450 for 1 hour. Score the dough and load into the DO. I add 2 ice cubes to the pot3 then cover and bake for 22 minutes. Remove the top and continue to bake for 22 more minutes then take it out of the oven. Let fully cool and enjoy.

1 I know you know this but 1:3:3 in this case would be 33g starter, 99g flour and 99g water. That will give you plenty starter to get 180g and have enough to feed and continue your starter. I do this rather than build a levain because that is just fiddly.

2 I really like the Reynolds roasting bags in the “chicken” size. They are big enough for your banneton and last for a very long time. I have 3 that I’ve been using for over a year!

3 If you are not familiar with this trick, it is really cool. The ice cube does 2 things. First it lowers the temperature for just a little bit to prevent the crust from setting too soon and it also provides more humidity in the DO so that the outside of the loaf will gelatinize and make a cracker like crust.