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Tony Ben's Sourdough
Sourdough is a nice tasty bread, it goes well with butter or cheese, or butter and cheese. I suppose you could put something else on it, but it won't be as nice as butter or cheese, or butter and cheese.
No, just follow the simple steps below. I've put the time of day I do each step but you can move the schedule about to suit you
You make it with your hands
No
Yes
No this is not a starter guide, it's a guide to make the starter; I suppose I could have made a starter starter's guide or a starter's starter guide but that would get confusing.
OK! OK!
Let's see, we don't use yeast to make it rise we use a starter.
You will use starter instead of yeast, once you have the starter you can keep it alive for ever, I've had mine over 9 years. Essentially when you make a loaf you use some of the starter, you then feed the starter which will make more starter for the next loaf.
IMPORTANT!!! NEVER USE METAL UTENSILS OR CONTAINERS
- take 100g flour
- take 100g water
- mix them together
- put it in a bowl and cover it with a plate
- put the bowl somewhere warm like the top of the fridge
- take 100g flour
- take 100g water
- mix them together
- add the mixture to yesterday's mixture, mix it together
- cover the bowl and put it back on top of the fridge
- same as day 2
- same as day 3
- same as day 4
- Put the mixture in a Kilner jar and put that in the fridge not on top of
- Give the starter a little stir while it is still in the jar
- Take 200g of starter
- Take 80g of flour
- Mix these together in a small bowl, cover it with a plate and put it somewhere warm for about 4 hours
- Mix 100g of flour and 100g of water
- Add this to the starter jar mix, mix it well and put it back in the fridge if you're not going to make another loaf for a week. Or leave it out and you'll be able to make another loaf tomorrow.
- Take 350g of flour and 220g of water
- In a bigger bowl mix these two together, cover it with a plate and put it somewhere warm for about 1 hour
- Take the starter mix from the small bowl and mix it with the stuff in the big bowl
- Mix it so everything is homogenised (mixed well together and evenly)
- Tip it out onto your work surface
- Slap and fold the mixture for about 10 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9ui57C145Y
- Put the mixture into a clean bowl
- Wait 30 minutes
- Stretch and fold the mixture in the bowl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HprDjPWuiN8 while mixing in 8g of salt. IMPORTANT!! don't add any more salt after the first stretch and fold
- Go to step 1. and repeat this for about 3 hours doing a stretch and fold every 30 minutes (remember that the salt is only added during the first stretch and fold
- Sprinkle rice flour onto the banneton
- Tip the dough onto a work surface and knead it for a minute or so
- Shape it into a ball or a roll and put it in the basket
- Put a plastic bag or shower cap over the basket and let it rest for about 3 hours
- Put it in the fridge for about 22 hours
- Gently flip over the banneton onto a baking tray (like you do when making a Spanish omelette
- Cut a nice couple of slashes on top of the loaf if you want to, an old style shaving blade is perfect, a knife won't work
- Put the oven on at gas mark 6
- Once the oven is hot put the tray in the oven and cover with another upside down tray (I do this because I don't have a dutch oven)
- After about 20 minutes check the bread and turn it round so it bakes evenly
- Check every 5-10 minutes until it has the colour you like (well it's really just a shade of brown you don't get any other colour). The browner it is the crunchier the crust will be
- Wait 10 minutes or so
- Cut a slice
- Put butter on it
- Eat it
- After that you can eat with butter or cheese, or butter and cheese. I suppose you could put something else on it, but it won't be as nice as butter or cheese, or butter and cheese.