Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Last weekend, I taught a couple of friends how to bake sourdough from scratch.

Over the course of the morning, I discovered that as a face to face teacher, I have limitations. I try to provide a lot of information, which can be difficult to take in fully during a few hours on a Saturday morning. Sometimes it works well – Helen sent this photo of her first solo loaf the following day, and it was perfect…

A couple of days later, I had a text from my other friend which began with…“Ok, so the Japanese tea towel caught fire..”

Hmm. I thought I’d better write notes.

I’ve written several sourdough tutorials over the years – our original Overnight Sourdough Tutorial, which I wrote in 2014, is still one of the most popular posts on our blog. Following that came our High Hydration Overnight Tutorial in 2016, which was almost as popular. But the way I make my dough is constantly evolving – the High Hydration tutorial adopted the newer trend of using a much smaller proportion of starter to flour, and I’ve reduced it even further after reading Emilie’s excellent book, Artisan Sourdough Made Simple.

So this blog post is a rundown on how I’m teaching my friends to make sourdough in 2018. I’ve cheated a bit and used notes and photos from our previous tutorials – the method has been tweaked, but it’s still basically the same. There are also a couple of new videos showing the current shaping and slashing techniques I’m using.

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An integral part of the process is the baking of the dough in an enamel roaster. This makes a world of difference to the finished loaf. If you haven’t already invested in one, they’re very affordable, especially compared to enameled cast iron. You can buy the Wiltshire brand at David Jones, or the Falcon brand at Peters of Kensington. If you’re in the US, there are heaps available on Amazon at very reasonable prices…

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Begin with your starter bubbly and active. Start feeding it up about eight hours before you need it. Don’t even contemplate making dough if it doesn’t look like this. Test it by putting a small spoonful into a glass of water – if it’s ready, it will float.

Please, please, please read this post on how to feed and care for your starter…

Start at least an hour before you’re ready to go to bed and measure out 100g of bubbly starter into a large mixing bowl…

Add 700g of cool or room temperature water…

Add 1kg bakers or bread flour…

Add 18g fine sea salt…

With a clean hand, squelch everything together, then scrape off your hand and cover the dough with a shower cap or tea towel. Let it sit on the bench for half an hour or so…

After the dough has rested, uncover it and give it a quick knead (for about a minute or so)…

Cover the dough with a shower cap, beeswax wrap or wok lid and leave it on the bench overnight.

The following morning, it will look like this (but without the speckly bits as I no longer add wholemeal – sorry, it’s a recycled photo)…

Dust the bench really well with fine semolina (rye flour, rice flour or just bakers flour will also work). Scrape out the dough…

It will be soft and puffy, and a bit sticky…

Now here’s the trick…using your spatula, scrape under the dough on one side and stretch it up…

Fold it over the top of the dough…

Repeat with the other side…

Do the same thing with the bottom part of the dough…

And again with the top section…

These four folds enclose all the sticky bits of the dough inside, leaving a completely semolina dusted (and therefore much easier) exterior to work with…

Using your spatula, divide the dough in half.

A note at this point: I have a large oven and several enamel roasters, so I always bake at least two loaves at the same time (usually three). If your oven can only fit one loaf at a time, you can either make a half batch, or divide the dough in two and return one half to the covered mixing bowl. Begin preshaping the second loaf when you place the first loaf into the oven…

Shape each half into a rough ball by folding the edges into the middle…

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Leaving the dough balls seam side up, dust the tops with semolina…

Cover with a clean tea towel and allow the dough to rest for about 15 minutes. This preshaping process makes the dough much easier to handle…

Uncover the dough and flatten each ball, then shape them into oval loaves. I do this by folding the edges in at the top and bottom, then folding the dough in half. Here’s a new video of my current shaping technique…

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Place each shaped loaf onto a sheet of parchment paper, seam side down, then cover them with the tea towel again and allow them to prove for a further 30 – 60 minutes…

Alternatively, you could put them into tea towel lined bannetons – roll the shaped loaves gently in fine semolina first if you’re planning to do that, and put them gently into the baskets seam-side up (you’ll invert them out onto the parchment paper later).  Let the dough rise for a further 30 – 60 minutes, depending on the ambient temperature in your kitchen.

At this point, turn your oven on and preheat it to 230C with fan.

Once the loaves have puffed up a bit, it’s time to slash. If the dough is in bannetons, turn it out carefully onto parchment paper.

The easiest thing to do is to make just one long slash down the side, and it’s a technique that works well. You can use a serrated knife, a lame or a razor blade…

If you’d like to try something fancier, you might like our “half starburst” slash. Use a sharp razor if you’re going to attempt it – the single slash will be fine if made with a serrated knife, but the fancier patterns need a thinner blade. Remember to slash with panache!

Here’s a new video of my slashing patterns – I gave up on using a lame ages ago and now just wield my razor commando style. I end up with a lot of tiny cuts on my fingers, but I like the control…

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Lifting by the sides of the parchment paper, lower each loaf into an enamel roaster. Spritz the top of each loaf with a little water, if you like (it’s not essential). Cover with the lids, then put them into the oven, reducing the heat to 220C with fan. Note that the pots are cold – I don’t think it’s necessary to preheat them.

Set the timer for 20 – 25 minutes (you’ll figure out how your oven bakes after the first couple of tries. I now bake for 23 minutes with the lid on!)…

At the 20 (to 25) minute mark, uncover the pots to release any remaining steam – the loaves should be well risen and just starting to brown. Leaving the lids off, rotate the pots, then close the oven again and set the timer for a further 15 -20 minutes (again, you’ll figure it after your first bakes – I now do 15 – 16 minutes lid off, depending on how Bobby is behaving that day).

One other thing to note – I usually bake three loaves at a time, if you’re baking a single, you might need less time. Experiment and find the timing that best suits your oven.

After the second 15 – 20 minutes, the crust will be dark brown and crisp. At this point, I pull the loaves out of the oven and let them cool on a wire rack. If you’d like the loaves darker, take them out of the pot and place them directly on the rack for a further 5 – 10 minutes.

Here’s a photo taken from our cooking class…

The finished loaf should feel light and crusty. It will sound like a hollow drum when tapped on the bottom. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before slicing…

Here are the loaves I slashed in the video above…

I’ve found that the loaves keep well for a couple of days in a beeswax wrap (make sure they’re cool first)..

If you’re new to sourdough, I hope you’ll give this method a go. I don’t have any starter to share at the moment, but lovely Emilie’s book has clear instructions on how to grow your own, and I believe she’s also selling her starter Dillon via mailorder. Have fun! ♥

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I know, I know. I bang on about this all the time.

The very best part of sourdough baking (for me) is being able to share bread with others.

And as my friends on the Bay Run found out recently, if you stand still long enough, I’m likely to hand you a loaf. In turn, Sue and Mel shared their warm baguettes with our favourite barista Samira, and when I popped in for a coffee the following day, she asked me if I’d bake a fruit loaf for her.

I don’t normally bake to order, but I couldn’t refuse Sami – after all, she’s been cheerfully making brilliant decaf piccolos for me for over a year. So I took the box of dried fruit she gave me and baked three sourdough fruit loaves for her the next morning…

She was excited, but didn’t want to take all three loaves. I figured she could share one and take two home, which is exactly what she did. By the time Mel and Sue had made their way over for coffee, Sami had already cut up and handed out a whole loaf to customers. How cool is that!

Big Boy and I shared a hot buttered slice as we walked, and it was divine…

I came home, fed up Priscilla, and made another batch. Here’s the formula I used:

• 100g bubbly sourdough starter (see note)
• 1kg bread/bakers flour
• 700g – 750g water (the flour I’m currently using is very thirsty, so adjust the water quantity as needed)
• 18g fine sea salt
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 100g dried dates, chopped
• 50g dried apple, finely chopped
• 50g dried apricots, chopped
• 100g walnut pieces

Note: Over the past couple of years, I’ve adopted the current trend of using less starter in my sourdoughs, and the results have been very pleasing. You could, however, simply add the dried fruit and cinnamon to the basic overnight sourdough recipe and it should work fine.

1. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the starter, water, cinnamon and dried fruit.

2. Add the flour and salt, and squelch everything together with a clean hand. Cover and allow the dough to rest for about half an hour.

3. Uncover the dough and give it a brief knead in the bowl (less than a minute), then cover it again and allow to prove overnight.

4. The following morning, the dough should be well risen and puffy. Dust the bench with flour or fine semolina (my preference) and scrape out the dough. Stretch and fold it onto itself so that all sides are coated in flour – this makes it easier to work with. There are photos of this process in our earlier tutorial.

5. Divide the dough into two or three even pieces. I bake three smaller loaves in my ginormous oven, but you could just as easily bake two larger ones. If you have a tiny oven, just halve the quantities and bake a single loaf. Shape each piece into a ball, then let it sit on the bench for 15 minutes, covered in a tea towel. This short rest will make shaping the loaves much easier.

6. Shape each ball into a round or oval loaf, trying to keep as much fruit inside the loaf as possible. Sit each loaf on a sheet of parchment, or nestle it seam-side up in a tea-towel lined banneton. If you’re going to use bannetons, I suggest rolling the shaped dough in fine semolina first, which will help prevent sticking. Preheat the oven to 220C with fan. Allow the dough to prove until puffed up – about 30 minutes to an hour.

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7. If using bannetons, carefully turn the loaves onto sheets of parchment and slash a long cut on the top, either in the middle or offset to one side. Try to avoid any bits of fruit.  Place each loaf into an enamel roaster and cover with lid. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

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8. Remove the lid and bake for a further 20 minutes (you might need a bit more time if you’re baking larger loaves). I like to reduce the temperature to 210C with fan at this point, as the sugars in the fruit can cause the top to burn a bit. Bake until well browned and hollow sounding.

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In theory, you should let the loaves cool before slicing, but this bread was so delicious hot and smothered in butter that all I can really recommend is letting it rest for half an hour or so before cutting into it.

This is hands down my favourite fruit and nut sourdough so far! It doesn’t have raisins or sultanas in it, nor is there any added sugar, yet the dates, apples and apricots add rich sweetness and depth of flavour. The walnuts turn the dough a gorgeous purpley-grey which carries through to the finished bread.

I took a leaf out of Sami’s book and invited all the neighbours over for a slice…

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Break bread with others, folks. Share the sourdough love as often as you can! ♥

PS. If you’re just starting out, you might enjoy our earlier sourdough tutorials:

Overnight Sourdough Tutorial

Overnight High Hydration Sourdough Tutorial

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