EDITOR'S CHOICE

BEST OF THE QUARTER

The smell of bread baking in the oven has to be the happiest of aromas. I love sourdough, with oodles of butter smeared on it. Shailly Arora, in Panchgani, has, very conscientously persevered in her mission and is today an accomplished baker who keeps Panchgani denizens, including me, in good cheer

Shailly Arora

Boulangère

Sharma Farms, Panchgani

Want to learn to make sourdough from scratch? Shailly Arora shows you how, intricate step by intricate step

(Recipe) Sourdough Boule

When baking sourdough, it’s absolutely a MUST that you “weigh” the ingredients and follow the recipe precisely.

Ingredients

• 320 g all-purpose or bread flour

• 80 g wholewheat flour (or you can use all “all purpose flour”, in which case add this 80 g to the 320 g above)

• 8 g sea salt

• 80 g levain (recently fed or active sourdough starter)

• 280 ml water (70% hydration) – In summer/drier winter months, this amount of water can be increased, use with caution (try adding 5-10 g water) at a time as too much water will make the dough very sticky and unmanageable for a beginner.

Method

Day 1

4 pm: Autolyse (mixing of flour & water)

Mix all-purpose/wholewheat flour combo and 280 ml water (take a tsp or two tsp water out to mix in sea salt). Mix without kneading, just circular motions and ensure there are no dry bits.

Cover (using a damp cloth or an unused shower cap) and let it rest for 30 minutes. This is essential for the dough to relax and for the gluten to develop. 

4.30 pm: Add the levain by spreading on top of the dough by pinching, mixing and incorporating it into the dough. Perform a set of 4 stretch and folds; rotate the bowl 90° after every fold. Cover and let it rest for another 30 minutes.

5.00 pm: Add salt by pinching and mixing, perform another set of 4 stretch and folds and rotate 90° after every fold. Cover and let it rest for 30 minutes.

5.30 pm: You could add seeds (like white and black sesame, flax, pumpkin, which should be soaked over a period of 1-2 hours and the water drained using a strainer) using lamination process. Spray your counter with some water, pull out the dough from the bowl gently. Pull the dough gently (don’t press down) into a rectangle, sprinkle the soaked and drained seeds. Roll it up like an envelope, bottom part folded into the middle, top part folded into the middle, then each side, roll and place it gently back into the bowl. Do one set of 4 stretch and folds gently. Cover and let it rest. You could skip the seeds and just do a plain lamination or skip the lamination process completely and just do a another set of plain 4 stretch and folds.

6.00 pm: Perform another set of 4 stretch and folds. Cover and let it rest in a warm place till the dough rises to about 25-50% of its current state. This could be anywhere between 2-3 hours – watch and observe the dough – this stage is called bulk fermentation. It should have bubbles that would have formed on the surface of the dough and the surface will be domed on the top. Overall the dough will rise. If you have stretched this fermentation too far then this dough may collapse and the surface could become flat – then you will need to abandon going any further. So watch every 30 minutes in the beginning till you get used to the timelines depending on the temperature of your place. The timing of the bulk fermentation will also vary depending on the seasons – it will be shorter in summer or monsoons and longer in winter months. 

8.30 – 9 pm: Put the bowl in the fridge (dough must be covered with a cling wrap or a plastic bag or else it will dry out the dough, forming a skin not good for the baking time as the crust will harden and ruin the bread).

Most sourdough books or bakers (in US, Australia, UK or Europe), perhaps elsewhere in India will shape and proof this dough in a bannetton or a bowl lined with a cloth dusted with rice flour (so that the dough doesn’t stick) and put in the fridge overnight. I find that living in a place like the hills with say high humidity, shaping and proofing the dough in a bannetton and keeping in the fridge overnight loosens up the dough and it loses its boule shape making it flatter. It will have no impact on the flavour, however.

Day 2

Take the dough out of the fridge at any time that is possible for you, remove the dough gently from the bowl on a lightly floured counter using a spatula – taking care not to de-gas the dough. Top side should remain on the top of the counter. Do 4 gentle folds at 90° to each other and gently flip it over, drag and rotate 4 times, be gentle so as not to de-gas the rise that has happened due to fermentation, so that the seam at the bottom is completely covered. Add and spray rice flour on the cloth in the proofing bowl, keep the folds/seam on top (so flipping it over), when putting in the bowl. Flip the folded portions on the top. Keep the proofing bowl back in the fridge during monsoon/summer months for the next one hour. This process is called proofing. You could also shape and put it directly in an aluminum cake pan lined with parchment paper. Cover it and keep this in the fridge.

30 minutes after shaping and putting this dough in a bowl to proof, switch on the oven to the maximum temperature (using both the top and bottom elements of a cast-iron Dutch oven) to pre-heat the oven. The oven takes about 30–45 minutes to reach that max 220-225° C temperature.  Each oven temperature is different, hence it is always recommended to use an oven thermometer.

8.00 am: Make sure the oven temperature has reached the maximum level (approximately 30-45 minutes from the time of putting the oven on). Tip over the dough on a parchment paper, score the bread dough with a swift stroke using an old-fashioned blade or a lame. Put this parchment paper with the dough inside the Dutch oven with the lid on and put inside the oven. If not using the Dutch oven, put the aluminium tin directly in the oven with an aluminium foil covering it lightly. You could also put this parchment paper in a pyrex bowl with its lid on.

8.30 am: Take the lid off of the oven, if you feel the dough crust is darkening a lot, reduce the temp 20-25° C. Or you could remove the aluminum foil if using an aluminium tin.

8.50 am: Switch off the oven. Keep the door ajar for 30 minutes with the dough inside the oven or the aluminium tin.

9.20 am: Remove from the oven and put the boule on a wire rack for atleast one or two hours to cool. If you cut it as soon as it’s out of the oven or still warm, there is a chance that the sourdough may have some gummy wet bits, so stay away from the temptation to slice it right away. Wait for it to cool completely before slicing. When you knock on the base of the sourdough boule, it should sound hollow.

Note: Sourdough starter is the main ingredient that is developed over a period of 7-10 days, using just equal parts flour and water which is fed once or twice every day (discarding half of the mix every day before feeding additional equal parts flour and water), for 7-10 days till it becomes “alive”, rises from its initial levels and is bubbly because of the natural yeast activity from the environment.