Ingredients:
- Sourdough starter
- 950g strong white bread flour
- 150g wholemeal flour (+ a little for dusting)
- 20g salt
- 850g hand temperature water
- 20g of rice flour
Leven:
The night before you want to make your loaves mix 50g wholemeal, 50g white bread flour, and 100g hand temp water with 2tbsp of your starter. Cover with tea towel and leave overnight.
Loaves:
- In the morning the leven should have visible bubbles (a tsp of the mixture should float in a cup of water).
- If so in a large bowl put 700g hand temp water and disperse the leven so the water is murky and all leven is mixed in.
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Add 900g white bread flour and 100g of wholemeal. If you want a more wholemeal type loaf you can change the flour quantities accordingly, but keep total flour weight to 1kg. The more wholemeal you add the longer you should leave between turns and you may have to add a bit more water at this stage of mixture is too stiff.
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Mix in all flour to water mixture until no dry flour is left. Cover with tea towel and let rest for half an hour.
- Sprinkle over 20g of salt and add 50g water. Squeeze mixture until all combined. Until it all comes together. It will! (If you want to get more advanced this is the stage I suggest adding any other stuff you might want e.g., olives nuts etc.)
- Let dough rest for 3 hours in bowl covered by tea towel turning roughly every half hour (extend periods to 4hrs and 40mins respectively for a more wholemeal type bread). By turning you wet your hand and fold dough 3–5 times edges over middle. Do not need to overdo this. By the end of this the dough should keep its shape after folding and be sort of shiny in appearance.
- After the 3 hours are up turn the dough onto an unfloured worksurface. Lightly flour dough top with wholemeal or white flour and cut in half. With each half flip over so floured surface on bottom and fold each side over (sort of like an envelope). Then turn in a circle and shape. Stop when it starts to feel a bit sticky. Leave covered for half an hour.
- Line two bowls with tea towels and dust with wholemeal and rice flour. Flour top of two dough rounds, flip over and fold and shape again as before. Now place each round in the proving bowls. The bottom will be the top of your loaf, so fold side up! Cover and leave for 3 hours.
- Half an hour before baking place saucepans or Dutch ovens, lid on, in at 250°C. If you only have one then you’ll have to repeat this step twice. When the oven is up to heat turn down to 230°C. Take pan out carefully and flip dough round into it without knocking it about. I use my Dutch oven upside down flipping the dough round into the lid. Slice a cut into top of the dough and bake for appx. 20min with lid on and appx. 20 min lid. When ready your loaves should be browned and hollow.
Sourdough pizza:
You can also use the dough as a base for a pizza. Once the bench rest is complete use one dough round and carefully pull/stretch it into a rectangle (or your desired pizza base shape). Top with whatever pizza topping take your fancy and bake at 180°C for appx. 20min, or until cooked.
