“Ain’t Got Time For Sourdough” Sourdough Bread Pictorial
Christmas means a lot of demands on time and energy. I optimistically mixed up a preferment for basic sourdough bread to leave in the fridge overnight.
The preferment is just SD starter, flour and water left to Pre Ferment. Full sourdough bread recipe here.
Mixing the preferment is the only step I didn’t take any pictures of, so I thought I’d post a pictorial. The preferment is pretty straight forward.:)
Overnight preferment turned into about 8 days.
Long story short, this sourdough took about a week and a half to complete, and still turned out great.
It’s nice to know I can walk away at *almost* any point and continue the next step when I have time!!
Cold fermenting your sourdough will give it a more sour flavor, so if you don’t like sour sourdough, this method isn’t for you.
The yeast doesn’t mind though, it did its thing in the fridge a bit slower and I took it out to carry on with the recipe believing I had the time necessary (LOL).
I mixed the water through the preferment before adding flour and leaving it to autolyse for 20 minutes. I then added salt…
I mixed the salt in a bit and turned the dough out on a floured counter. After working the salt through, I split the dough in half.
Next, I use the stretch & fold method to work the dough. I did a stretch and fold every 10 minutes, 3 times letting the dough rest each time.
I roughly shape boules (balls) and place each one in an oiled container.
It was getting late, so the containers went into the fridge.
There they stayed. For 2 days. Ugh. I thought – thats it, I’ve ruined it by now LOL.
But what did I have to lose at this point? All the ingredients were already in there, might as well carry on…
I finally took the containers out of the fridge and used the stretch and fold method to work the dough before shaping boules.
I use springform bottoms as mini baking sheets.
The parchment paper is lightly greased and cut into a sling.
You’re not going to believe this…
Again, I was interrupted on the final rise!! Into the fridge it went for another 2 days.
I put the whole thing, springform bottom, parchment and all into a bag and tied it in a way that the bag was full of air so the dough would have room to rise.
This dough and the fridge were getting to be good friends. I reunited them once again…
What day are we on now? Approximately day 12. Meh, no biggie.
Taking no chances, I woke up extra early to get this done!
I started heating the oven and pulled out the dough.
It looked pretty flat.
I decided to leave it as is and see what happens. It’s research at this point!
When the oven was heated to 500F I used a razor blade to score the breads, sprayed the tops with water, and slid the boules & parchment directly onto oven racks.
A deep baking sheet full of water on the bottom shelf provided steam.
I left the oven at 500 for 5 minutes and turned it down to 425F for the remaining time. I did this to get as much oven spring as possible by exciting the yeast.
Judging by the outcome, they were excited.:) I made soccer balls!:)
Steam keeps the dough pliable long enough to allow for oven spring (quick rising due to heat).
Once a crust begins to develop, steam will escape through the scoring (or it will find another way LOL).
I removed the water tray after 15 minutes. The bottom of the loaves begin to cook better once the tray is removed.
And the finished (finally!) sourdough. The crust is interesting, take a look at all those tiny air pockets!
