I've had this recipe open in a tab in my browser for... probably a couple months now. It sounded delicious, but I kept just not quite having the right confluence of spoons, ingredients, and time to make it. Well, I finally got to it. And it's pretty amazing!

It's not a super light and airy loaf. It's got too many inclusions for that. I actually found that I had to add a little bit more flour than the recipe called for just to get the dough to come together properly. I think next time I'd actually put a little less tomato in as it made the dough very wet and kind of overpowered everything else. (And it occurs to me now that I totally should've weighed the tomato to make it easier to quantify next time! Oh well...) It's still delicious though. The basil and the garlic just kind of take a back seat to the tomato. Definitely glad I gave it a try.

Tomato-Basil Sourdough

Slightly adapted from Cultures for Health

Ingredients

• 250g ripe (active/fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 6-8 cocktail tomatoes, chopped
• 28-30g fresh basil, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, sliced
• 300g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 250g hard (strong/high grade/bread) white flour
• 1 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 100g sun-dried tomatoes, julienned
• water, as needed

Directions

1. Combine the starter, tomatoes, basil, garlic, and whole wheat flour and mix well. Cover and set aside for ~30 minutes.
2. Work in just enough of the white flour to form a soft dough.
3. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead in the salt and sun-dried tomatoes. Flour the work surface as needed with any of the remaining white flour.
4. If your tomatoes were not very juicy and the dough seems too stiff, you may need to work in a bit of extra water during kneading rather than using flour on the work suface.
5. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a covered bowl. Ferment at room temperature for 2-4 hours (may need longer if the room is cool). Stretch and fold the dough every hour or so during fermentation.
6. Once the dough has completed its bulk ferment, divide it into two equal portions and round each one. Cover and let rest for ~30 minutes.
7. Shape each round into a loaf and place in a floured banneton. Cover and proof until puffy and well-risen¹. Alternatively, cover and place in the fridge overnight. Take out about an hour before you'd like to bake the loaves.
8. Preheat oven to 230°C (450°F) and boil some water.
9. Grease a baking sheet and dust it with cornmeal.
10. Turn the loaves out onto the prepared baking sheet and slash as desired.
11. Put a pan of boiling water on the bottom oven rack and put the bread on a rack set above.
12. Bake at 230°C (450°F) until the crust is nicely browned (~15 minutes).
13. Remove the pan of water and reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for another 20-30 minutes.
14. Once loaves are done, turn the oven off and let them rest in the hot oven for 5-10 minutes.
15. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

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¹ I didn't time how long my loaves took to proof. Probably ~2 hours, but I'm not entirely sure. It'll vary depending on your starter, your tomatoes, room temperature, etc. anyway. Let the dough tell you when it's done rather than relying on a specific timing. ^Back