Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Our Overnight Sourdough Tutorial, which I wrote in 2014, has become one of the most popular posts on our blog.

It was designed to be a simple, basic formula which would work well with our Priscilla sourdough starter. Being a lower hydration dough, it was easy for even absolute beginners to produce a good everyday loaf on their first attempts.

If you’ve mastered the basic overnight sourdough and would like to try something a bit more challenging, then this tutorial is for you. This higher hydration dough results in a chewy, open crumb with great flavour and an artisan, burnished crust. It takes a bit of skill to handle the wet dough, but it’s not very difficult – we’ve taken as many photos and videos as we could to make it as easy as possible for you.

I’ll assume that if you’re going to attempt this, then you’ve already read our first tutorial and are comfortable with the feeding and care of your starter. This recipe uses a much smaller proportion of active starter, fed at a ratio of one part water to one part bakers flour by volume (166% hydration).

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…

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Ok…ready to go? Let’s get started.

Begin with your starter bubbly and active…

Start at least an hour before you’re ready to go to bed (I started at 7pm), and measure out 110g of active starter into a large mixing bowl…

Edit 18Nov2017: since reading Emilie’s book, I now use an even 100g of starter and the bread works out perfectly. Round numbers are nice!

Add 750g of cool or room temperature water…

Add 900g bakers flour…

…followed by 100g wholemeal spelt flour. If you can’t get spelt, use regular wholemeal (or wholewheat) flour. The recipe will also work with all bakers flour, but it might be a bit stickier to handle. Reduce the water to 700g if necessary…

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 cling film. Let it sit on the bench for an hour or so…

After the dough has rested, uncover it and give it a few stretchy folds. Using wet hands, grab one side of the dough and pull it up, then fold it over the top. Repeat this three more times, giving the bowl a quarter turn each time. Edit: I like to do this twice, making two complete rounds (ie. eight stretches and folds). The dough should start to tighten up by the end of the second round…

Here’s a video of the process…

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Cover the dough with the shower cap again and leave it on the bench overnight. If you have time before going to bed, you can fold the dough again.

The following morning, it will look like this…

Preheat the oven to maximum. 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 quite soft and 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 two enamel roasters, so I always bake two loaves at the one time. If your oven can only fit one loaf at a time, divide the dough in two, then 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 (there’s a video of how to do this here)…

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 20 minutes. This preshaping process makes the high hydration 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 – it’s much easier to show you than explain, so we’ve taken a video (there are also some photos here). Use a gentle touch…

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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 half an hour or so. You could put them into bannetons, but I find the higher hydration doughs tend to stick to the cane…

Once the loaves have puffed up a bit, it’s time to slash. I used to make just one long slash down the side, and it’s a technique that works well…

…but 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!

Lifting by the sides of the parchment paper, lower each loaf into an enamel roaster. 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 minutes…

At the 20 minute mark, uncover the pots to release any remaining steam – the loaves should be well risen but pale. Close the oven and set the timer for a further 20 minutes…

After the second 20 minutes, the crust will be dark brown and burnished. I like to take the loaves out of the pots, place them on the oven racks, and bake them for a further 5 – 10 minutes at 175C with fan.

By the way, the loaves will shrink back a bit after baking with the lid off, but not nearly as much as the photo below implies – I took the photo above of our small roaster and the one below of our big one.

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…

The crumb is gloriously holey and chewy. A little trivia for you – my friend Joe told me that his Italian baker father refers to the holes as “naski”. Naska, according to Joe, is the word for nasal passage, so if the bread has naski, it can breathe…

A note on timing – I usually make this dough at about 9pm and then shape it when I get up in the morning (usually about 6am).

For this tutorial, I made the dough at 7pm (to ensure there was enough light for the photos) and didn’t get to shape it until 9am the following morning (when Pete was around to help me take the videos). Because Priscilla is so resilient, she didn’t seem to mind the longer proving time!

I hope you’ll give this a go – it takes a little bit of practice, but once you’ve got the knack of it, you’ll find the stretchy dough great fun to work with! ♥

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Original Overnight Sourdough Tutorial

Priscilla Sourdough Starter – Tips and Suggestions