First post, first loaf. Be gentle with feedback. Bake time was supposed to be 50 minutes with the last 15 uncovered. I mistakenly set my timer for one hour. So it is a little over done. Realizing my mistake I rescued it at just under 57 minutes.
Recipe/procedure:
100g starter.
10g kosher salt
350g water.
500g Caputo 00 flour Bake 50 minutes in Dutch oven at 450F. Remove lid last 15 minutes. Ice in pan on shelf below Dutch oven.
Procedure:
Yesterday afternoon I poured some of my newly acquired starter into a bowl on my scale. I added the water and salt and gave it a good mixing. Then I added the flour and mixed everything together with a curlycue dough whisk thing by hand, instead of using the KitchenAid mixer.
Leaving everything in the bowl I covered it with a towel and let it rest for a half hour. Then I stretched it with wet fingers and pinched it together all the way around the bowl. I repeated the stretching and pinching every half hour until I did it for a total of four times.
I let it sit in the bowl for about an hour and it was rising but I’m not exactly sure how much, maybe 50% or so. It was difficult to tell for sure because the bowl is tapered and as it rose it also spread out.
Based on the instructions I got from a friend, I dumped it out onto a floured surface. I did some of that stretching and folding type of kneading until it looked right and formed a good ball.
Using a linen covered forming basket I dusted the linen with flour and put the dough in. I covered it with a towel and let it sit on the counter for about one hour. Then I moved it to the refrigerator to sit overnight, approximately 10 hours.
After removing from the fridge I turned it out onto a floured surface and gave it a few stretch and fold kneads. Pinching everything together on the bottom it made a nice looking dough ball. Using my trusty scraper, I lifted it from the countertop and placed it on a lightly floured silicone bread lifting/transferring thingomobob doohickey.
While I was doing all the post refrigerator work I preheated my convection oven and Dutch oven to 450 degrees F.
I let the dough rest on the silicone doohickey for about a half hourish. After which, I picked it up by the lifting tails and placed it into the Dutch oven. I immediately dumped a tall glass of ice cubes into a small cake pan on the shelf under the Dutch oven.
I wrongly set my timer for one hour. At the forty minute mark I removed the lid from the Dutch oven and added another tumbler of ice to the cake pan. It looked pretty good to me and I snapped a quick pic.
Thinking It had another twenty minutes to go I began to get a little concerned when it started to darken. After texting a friend and realizing my timer error, I safely rescued the loaf at just under 57 minutes total.
So that is the story, recipe, and procedure of my first sourdough bread loaf.
Oh, and it tastes great!
by DD_Wabeno
13 Comments
Ok, I hope I included enough details in my recipe. I think I covered everything.
Looks good! Nice work
Whoaa where did you get that silicone doohickey? I need that, seems like it’d make the process so much easier and less wasteful of parchment paper for me
Looks great OP! Prepare to get downvoted by a lot of people who are jealous of your success for this being your first time.
Thanks for including so much details in your post. On an initial read, I have the following questions and comments:
> After removing from the fridge I turned it out onto a floured surface and gave it a few stretch and fold kneads.
This isn’t necessary. Once the dough’s been shaped, you should be carefully not to de-gas it. I would even say you should leave your dough in the fridge the whole time the oven is pre-heating, so when you take it out, it’s firm enough to easily score (curious to hear more about your scoring technique too).
I noticed you have the tray of ice below your dutch oven. Whether intentional or not, this prevents the bottom of your sourdough loaf from burning and becoming too dark. If you find yourself using a covered dutch oven and don’t have a tray beneath it, you will notice a significantly darker bottom.
Never go by volume for determining when the dough is ready: always go by other defining characteristics. i.e. does the dough wobble/jiggle when you gently shake the bowl? when you pour out the dough, do you observe gluten strands? did you see small bubbles on the surface of the dough? When you find yourself baking in an environment that you’re not used to (i.e. at an Airbnb, in-laws home, different season, etc.), all timing goes out the window and you’ll just have to go by the dough.
I noticed you put the dough on a floured surface. You shouldn’t actually need to — properly fermented dough should have enough tension to stick to itself and not to your hands or the surface. If you do find yourself wanting to use flour though, 1000% rice flour. If you use normal AP flour, it will burn and taste bitter.
> Then I moved it to the refrigerator to sit overnight, approximately 10 hours.
I followed [https://thesourdoughjourney.com/](https://thesourdoughjourney.com/) years ago when I first started baking and I vaguely remember many random facts from the blog. One random one that applies here is, after you put your dough in the fridge, it actually takes about 5-7 hours before it cools down enough to a point where fermentation stops entirely. So even though it was in your fridge for 10 hours, for the majority of that time, it was still actually fermenting. If you want to extend it even longer, that should — in theory — develop more flavor. I say in theory, because I’ve gone 2 days and my loaves are never that sour. I notice only when I switch to a different starter (stiff, rye starter), are my loaves noticeable more sour.
Sorry for this giant wall of text! Hope some of it is useful.
I’m gonna say what everyone is thinking… it’s too small! 😀 Looks great.
I’d be happy with that for my loaf 🙏🙏🙏
Wow!
Looks good!!!
You don’t need a steam tray with ice cubes if you are baking in a dutch oven with a lid. People often have a heavy sheet pan or pizza stone on the rack below the dutch oven to prevent bottom heating ovens from scorching the bottom of the bread.
May I ask why you shape the dough after taking it out of the forming basket? Is your basket too big and letting the dough spread too much? Usually from a cold proof you tip the dough out onto your sough sling, score and go right into the preheated dutch oven.
How did you do the bread sling when you were covered?
bravo !! congrats and welcome to your new obsession. looks amazing !
I will not downvote your post out of jealousy, just know that one of those upvotes was definitely done with jealousy though
Impressive! Congrats on your success!