I keep meaning to make another strata for breakfast but being too tired to put it together the night before and sleeping in too late to put it together the morning of. So, instead of strata, we had pancakes this morning. These are nice apple-pecan pancakes with a bit of oatmeal and cinnamon. (The original recipe called for walnuts, but the pecans were on top and I like them better anyway, so I just used them.)

I used a mix of white and whole wheat flour for my pancakes today. But I think I'd be quite happy to make them with 100% whole wheat flour next time. Or, if you adjusted the proportions a bit, you could easily do them up as sourdough pancakes instead.

We had some leftover chocolate from an earlier dessert, so I re-melted it by sitting the dish it was in inside the bowl of hot oatmeal and served it as a topping for these nutty, fruity pancakes. The Kidlet had hers with melted chocolate and maple syrup. And I opted for sliced bananas and a small drizzle of melted chocolate on mine. They were delicious!

Autumn Pancakes

Slightly adapted from The Big Book of Breakfast by Maryana Vollstedt

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. quick oats
• 1 1/2 c. boiling water
• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 180g whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 3 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 c. milk
• 1 large egg
• 1-2 apples, peeled and chopped
• 1/4 c. chopped pecans or walnuts

Directions

1. Pour the boiling water over the oats and let stand for 5 minutes.
2. Add the butter and set aside.
3. Sift the baking powder into the flour.
4. Add the cinnamon and sugar and mix well.
5. Beat the egg with the milk.
6. Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients along with the oat mixture. Stir to combine.
7. Stir in the apples and nuts.
8. Preheat a tawa or skillet over medium heat.
9. Grease as needed.
10. Working with ~1/4 c. of batter at a time, pour it onto the hot tawa.
11. Cook until bubbles form in the surface and edges begin to look slightly dry.
12. Flip and cook until both sides are golden brown and pancake is cooked through. Transfer to plate.
13. Repeat cooking process with remaining batter.
14. Serve with fruit, syrup, melted chocolate, and/or whippped cream.

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Variations

Sourdough Autumn Pancakes

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. quick oats
• 1 c. boiling water
• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 60g whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 3 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 c. milk
• 250g sourdough discard @ 100% hydration
• 1 large egg
• 1-2 apples, peeled and chopped
• 1/4 c. chopped pecans or walnuts

I don't tend to make very many rye breads. I find the low-gluten flour difficult to work with and I still haven't mastered the technique. This one came out quite nicely though! It takes a while to get it going. The sour needs to ferment over three days. But it's worth the wait!

Old Milwaukee Rye

Slightly adapted from Berndard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

Ingredients

Sponge

• 250g rye flour
• 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
• 1 Tbsp. caraway seeds
• 2 c. warm water (~40°C)

Dough

• 1 c. hot water (~50°C)
• 1/4 c. molasses
• 2 Tbsp. caraway seeds, divided
• 2 large eggs, divided
• 1 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 250g rye flour
• ~500g hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour
• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 1 Tbsp. milk

Directions

1. Combine the flour, yeast, caraway, and water for the sponge and beat for a minute or two.
2. Cover the bowl tightly and set aside at room temperature to ferment for 6-72 hours, stirring once every 24 hours.
3. Once ready to bake, add the hot water, molasses, 1 Tbsp. of the remaining caraway seeds, 1 of the eggs, and salt to the sponge.
4. Stir in the remaining rye flour and ~250g of the white flour.
5. Beat for 3-4 minutes, then mix in the butter.
6. Work in the remaining white flour a little at a time.
7. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 10-20 minutes until smooth.
8. Round the dough and place it in a covered bowl to rise (~1 hour).
9. Knock the dough back, allow to rest for 5-10 minutes.
10. Divide the dough into two equal portions and round each one.
11. Cover and rest for another 10 minutes.
12. Grease a baking sheet and dust it with cornmeal.
13. Shape each loaf as desired. If you have bannetons, then a standard letter fold + coil fold works well. If not, then I like to do a letter fold and then round them again. Or do a letter fold and then fold in half lengthwise and pinch the seam together.
14. If using bannetons, place the loaves seam-side-up in the bannetons. If no bannetons are available, place the shaped loaves directly on the prepared baing sheet (seam-side-down).
15. Cover and allow to rise at room temperature for ~45 minutes or as long as overnight in the fridge.
16. Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F).
17. If the loaves have been rising in bannetons, turn them out onto the prepared baking sheet now.
18. Beat the remaining egg with the milk.
19. Brush the tops of the loaves with the egg mixture and sprinkle with the remaining caraway seeds.
20. Slash as desired. (3-4 diagonal slashes for long loaves or a # pattern for round.)
21. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 35-45 minutes.
22. Turn off oven and allow to stand in hot oven for 5-10 minutes.
23. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

I've been alternating between making Bernard Clayton bread recipes and working my way through the selection of sourdough recipes on the King Arthur Flour website. This unusual focaccia was the next up in my queue. And I am very glad indeed! TF has very normal feelings about this bread. I like it. I like it a lot. But I don't think my enjoyment of it can hold a candle to TF's near unseemly fascination with it. I'm quite tickled that she's enjoying it so much!

I may play around with the proportions somewhat in the future. For this time, I stuck to the recipe and went fairly heavy on the oil. Next time I might try doubling the dough and bumping the corn up a little bit. Just as an experiment. It's really excellent as-is. I just like to tinker!

Tiwanese Bakery Sourdough Focaccia

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

• 75g ripe (fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 175g water
• 250g hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. garlic or scallion oil
• 1 Tbsp. sesame or chili oil
• 4 links Taiwanese sausage, sliced
• 2 green onions, sliced
• 50-60g fresh or frozen corn kernels
• 1-2 Tbsp. sesame seeds
• Kewpie mayonnaise

Directions

1. Make sure your starter is well-fed and active.
2. Combine the starter and water and mix well.
3. Add the flour and mix thoroughly.
4. Cover and let rest for 30-60 minutes.
5. Add the salt and knead for a few minutes to incorporate it.
6. Cover and rest for at least an hour.
7. Do a bowl fold, then spread the garlic/scallion oil over the surface. Cover and allow to rest for 4-8 hours.
8. Knock the dough back then cover and chill overnight. (If you are in a hurry, you may skip this step, but the flavour will be better with a slow, overnight fermentation.)
9. Oil a 23x33 (9x13") baking dish with a little of the sesame/chili oil.
10. Add the dough to the prepared pan and gently stretch it to fill as much of the pan as possible.
11. Cover and rest at room temperature for 2-3 hours, gently stretching every 30 minutes or so.
12. Dimple the surface of the dough and drizzle with the remaining oil.
13. Sprinkle with sliced sausage, green onion, corn, and sesame seeds.
14. Preheat oven to 230°C (450°F).
15. Bake focaccia on lower rack for 15-20 minutes.
16. If surface is not dark enough after 20 minutes, reduce temperature to 200°C (400°F) and bake for an additional 5 minutes.
17. Turn off oven and let stand in hot oven for 5 minutes.
18. Remove from oven, drizzle with mayo, cut into squares, and serve.

I was going to make miche as my next sourdough recipe. But then I saw that this new sourdough naan recipe had been posted. And it looked nice and easy to put together. And I figured that it would complement the dal I had planned for dinner well. So I figured why not?!

I've made sourdough naan before. And it was pretty good. But I'm always game for trying new recipes. And this one was a bit different, since it's meant to use sourdough discard (mostly for a bit of flavour) and then adds a generous quantity of commercial yeast to do the actual leavening. (Hence my categorization of it as a "faux sourdough".)

I liked how this naan came out in the end. Although I did have to adjust the recipe fairly significantly. I don't know if it was written for a much higher hydration starter or if there was just a typo in the quantities or what... (A pox on sourdough recipes that don't specify the hydration of the starter!) But, whatever the underlying issue, the dough was way too dry when made according to the recipe. I ended up working in an extra 120g of starter and still needed to add a few extra teaspoons of water to get it to come together into something workable. And, honestly, I think the overall hydration was still a bit on the low side. Next time I might try working even more water into it. I was just trying not to go too crazy with it this time.

Faux Sourdough Naan

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

• 420g hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour
• 120g plain yogurt
• 240g sourdough discard @ 100% hydration
• 120-150g water
• 2 1/4 tsp. instant yeast
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 3 Tbsp. ghee
• extra ghee, sea salt, and/or spices (optional)

Directions

1. Combine the flour, yogurt, discard, 120g of the water, yeast, salt, and sugar and mix until the dough comes together.
2. Turn out and knead for 1-2 minutes.
3. Work in the ghee 1 Tbsp. at a time.
4. If the dough seems too stiff, wet your hands and continue kneading. Repeat until enough moisture has been added.
5. Place in covered bowl to rise for 1-2 hours.
6. Knock back and divide into 100g portions.
7. Round each portion, cover, and proof at room temperature for ~30 minutes.
8. Heat a tawa or cast iron pan over medium heat.
9. Working with one portion of dough at a time, flatten into a round.
10. Wet one side thoroughly and place the naan, wet-side-down, onto the tawa. Sprinkle with desired toppings, cover, and cook for 1-2 minutes.
11. Flip and cook, uncovered, for another 1-2 minutes.
12. Brush with ghee and wrap in a clean tea towel while the remaining naan are cooked in the same fashion. (Shape each one while the previous one cooks.)
13. Serve immediately.

Kugelhopf is a yeasted cake full of dried fruit. It's traditionally baked in a special toroidal pan, similar to a Bundt pan, but narrower and deeper. I don't have a kugelhopf pan, so I just used a Bundt pan instead.

Sourdough Kugelhopf

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. dried cherries
• 1/2 c. raisins
• 1 c. rum¹
• 1 Tbsp. orange blossom water
• 500g hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 200g ripe (fed) sourdough starter
• 130g milk
• 4 large eggs
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 13 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
• 1-2 dozen whole almonds
• icing sugar, to garnish

Directions

1. Combine cherries, raisins, and rum and let stand overnight.
2. Drain fruit and mix in orange blossom water. (Discard rum or set aside for another use.)
3. Combine flour and salt and mix well.
4. In a separate bowl, combine starter, milk, eggs, and sugar and mix well.
5. Gradually mix wet ingredients into dry and knead with dough hook for a minute or two.
6. Cover and rest for 10 minutes.
7. Knead with dough hook for another 3-5 minutes.
8. Work in butter, 1 Tbsp. at a time, over the course of another 5 minutes or so.
9. Work in fruit and knead until evenly mixed and elastic.
10. Round dough and place in a covered bowl to rise for 2-4 hours, stretching and folding every 30-60 minutes.
11. Knock back the dough, round, cover, and rest for 20-30 minutes.
12. Grease a 10-12 cup kugelhopf or Bundt pan.
13. Place an almond in each "peak" in the bottom of the pan.
14. Round the dough again and make a hole through the centre.
15. Place the dough in the prepared pan, cover, and set aside to rise for another 3-6 hours (or overnight in the fridge).
16. Once ready to bake, preheat oven to 200°C (400°F).
17. Bake at 200°C (400°F) for 25 minutes.
18. Reduce heat to 190°C (375°F) and bake for another 15 minutes.
19. Turn out onto wire rack to cool.
20. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

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¹ The original recipe calls for kirsch, but I didn't have any (and TF and I don't like it anyway), so I used some spiced rum instead. ^Back

I love a good pandesal. Especially the lovely, purple, ube-flavoured ones! I've never tried making it myself though. And, arguably, I should have started with a more traditional, non-sourdough recipe for my first attempt. But I had starter that needed used, so I figured I'd give it a go.

I think this recipe was largely fine, but I was distracted and in a hurry when making it, so I didn't give it as much attention as I should have and ended up with slightly subpar results.

I didn't quite catch the starter at its peak, so it had already started to sink back by the time I was mixing the dough. I also absent-mindedly started scooping whole wheat flour into the bowl instead of the all-purpose flour that I'd been intending to use. So, instead of 300g of all-purpose flour, the final dough ended up with ~100g of whole wheat flour and 200g of all-purpose flour. This made the dough slightly drier than it was meant to be, which meant that I had trouble getting it to take up all of the flour. And, since I didn't have time to stay there and keep kneading it, I just covered it and let it sit for a couple hours while I attended to other things. This resulted in some obstinate lumps of mostly dry flour that were very difficult to properly smooth out and incorporate later. I was having enough trouble with these lumps and getting everything evenly mixed, that I decided to add a little more water. Now, what I should have done was wet my hands and work a bit of water in that way. Instead I decided to pour a little water in. And ended up adding 30g instead of the 5-10 it likely needed. So then the dough was much too wet. Which required trying to correct it with a little more flour (~40g). Not the end of the world, to be sure, but not exactly ideal either.

And then there was the shaping...

The recipe recommended rolling the dough into a log and then cutting the log into 12 discs and placing the discs cut-side-up for proofing and baking. So I did that. But I'm not really happy with the results that that gave. I think next time I'd pinch off balls of dough and round them in the usual way, placing them seam-side down on the baking sheet. Still... I'm glad that I tried it this way the first time, just to see how it worked out.

As I said, this is not a bad recipe overall. I just need to take a little more care with it next time around.

Sourdough Pandesal

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

• 120g ripe (fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 150g water
• 300g all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 3 Tbsp. sugar
• 1/4 c. canola (or other neutral) oil
• breadcrumbs, for coating

Directions

1. Make sure your starter is very well-fed and active.
2. Combine starter, water, flour, salt, and sugar and mix well.
3. Knead by hand or hook until dough is smooth and elastic (2-10 minutes depending on your technique).
4. Gradually work in the oil.
5. Cover and allow to ferment at room temperature for 4-8 hours.
6. Once the dough is fully risen, knock it back and allow to rest for a few minutes.
7. Divide the dough into 12 equal portions and round each one.
8. Roll each dough ball in breadcrumbs and place on a greased baking sheet.
9. Cover and allow to rise at room temperature for 1-2 hours.
10. Rolls may either be baked now or held in the fridge and baked off first thing in the morning.
11. Once ready to bake, preheat oven to 190°C (375°F).
12. Uncover rolls and bake at 190°C (375°F) for ~25 minutes.
13. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

I've been continuing to try out sourdough recipes from the King Arthur Flour website. This one is full of inclusions and spices. And, between the starter and the oatmeal, doesn't actually contain all that much fresh flour. Which made it a bit difficult to work with initially. The dough seemed very loose and wet and had very little gluten development. I actually ended up adding ~50g of extra flour, just to try to adjust the consistency to something slightly more workable. After it had sat overnight in the cold room though, it had tightened up quite a bit and I found myself wishing that I hadn't added the extra flour after all. So, I guess next time I'll trust the recipe and go with the original amounts.

Walnut and Raisin Oatmeal Sourdough

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

• 120g ripe (fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 250g cooked steel-cut oats¹, cooled
• 30g honey
• 30g water
• 30g unsalted butter
• 1 tsp. allspice berries, ground
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1 Tbsp. orange zest
• 220g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour²
• 1/8 tsp. instant yeast (optional)
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 65g walnuts, toasted and chopped
• 90g raisins

Directions

1. Make sure your starter is well-fed and active.
2. Combine starter, oatmeal, honey, water, butter, allspice, nutmeg, and orange zest and mix well. (Make sure the oatmeal isn't too hot or it will kill the yeast/starter.)
3. Add the flour and yeast and mix very well.
4. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 30-60 minutes.
5. Work in the salt and let stand for another hour or two.
6. Do a bowl fold and then let rest for another hour or so. Repeat until dough feels light and well-risen.
7. Work in the walnuts and raisins.
8. At this point, dough can be covered and stored in the fridge overnight or allowed to rest for one more hour before shaping.
9. Shape into a loaf and place in a banneton or prepared loaf pan. (If desired, dust the banneton/pan with some finely chopped steel-cut oats first to give the loaf a nice coating.)
10. Cover and allow to rise at room temperature for 2-3 hours.
11. If desired, loaf may be proofed in the fridge overnight.
12. Preheat oven to 230°C (450°F) and boil some water.
13. Bake bread at 230°C (450°F) over a pan of boiling water for 15 minutes.
14. Remove water pan and reduce heat to 190°C (375°F) and bake for another 20 minutes or so.
15. Turn off oven and let loaf stand in hot oven for 10 minutes.
16. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

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¹ Oats should be cooked with a ratio of 1:4.1 oats to water by mass. I started with 100g of oats and 410g of water and cooked until the oats were somewhat tender with a decent tooth/chew to them and the oatmeal was reasonably thick. I then weighed out 250g of the cooked oatmeal and reserved the rest for another use. ^Back
2 The original recipe calls for 220g of all-purpose flour. I ended up using 120g of whole wheat flour and 160g of all-purpose flour. I think next time I'd try using entirely whole wheat flour, but sticking to the originally recommended quantity. ^Back

I know I just made a chocolate sourdough, but this is a different chocolate sourdough. This one contains no sugar and no chocolate, but more than twice the amount of cocoa (proportionally). And the liquid is beer, rather than water. (I used a dark ale for mine.)

While the previous chocolate sourdough claimed to be a savoury bread, I actually found it relatively sweet. This one, however, is nothing like that. It is exceptionally dark and somewhat bitter. The recipe recommends pairing it with salty offerings like pickles, cheeses, and/or cured meats. And TF found it to be an excellent substrate for Vegemite. Meanwhile, the Kidlet thinks it will make an ideal bread for grilled cheese and has requested one tomorrow.

This bread also has some of the most impressively crisp, delightful crust that I've ever achieved. And it got great oven spring. (Despite me forgetting about it for an entire afternoon and generally being pretty lax with my care and timings when making it.) Very nice overall!

Chocolate Beer Bread

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

• 350g hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour
• 40g Dutched (alkalized) cocoa
• 300g beer
• 80g ripe (fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 1/2 Tbsp. coarse sea salt

Directions

1. Refresh your starter and make sure it's nice and active.
2. Combine the flour, cocoa, beer, starter, and salt and mix very well.
3. Let dough rest, covered, for 3-8 hours, stretching and folding every hour or so.
4. Once dough feels light and well-risen, shape it into a loaf and place it (seam-side-up) in a floured banneton.
5. Cover and let rest for 2-3 hours at room temperature (or 6-24 hours in the fridge).
6. When ready to bake: preheat oven to 250°C (475°F) and boil some water.
7. Grease a baking sheet and dust it with cornmeal.
8. Turn the loaf out onto the preapred baking sheet.
9. Gently rub or brush a little water onto the crust and then slash as desired.
10. Pour some boiling water into a roasting pan and place it on the bottom rack of the oven.
11. Place the bread on the rack above the water pan and bake at 250°C (475°F) for 15 minutes.
12. Reduce heat to 200°C (400°F), remove water pan, and bake for another 15-20 minutes.
13. Turn off oven and allow bread to rest in hot oven for 10 minutes.
14. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

This is pretty similar to the savoury sourdough discard we already make, but it incorporates a chemical leavener to yield a slightly fluffier finished pancake. The "batter" is just sourdough discard thinned with a little water, seasoned with a pinch of salt, and given a bit of baking powder for leavening. Chopped scallions and herbs get stirred into the batter as well. I think cilantro and/or parsley work particularly well. But you could experiment with a variety of different herbs.

The recipe suggests serving these with a dumpling dipping sauce. The Kidlet had hers with ketchup. TF went for some Sichuan peppercorn pickles. And I had mine with Laoganma and a little soy sauce. (Although next time I think I'd swap out the soy sauce for a bit of black vinegar instead.)

Much like with the other savoury pancakes, I think these go well with fried eggs. The eggs add a little protein and make the meal a bit more substantial.

Sourdough Herb and Scallion Pancakes

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

• 170g sourdough discard @ 100% hydration
• 2 Tbsp. water
• 1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 1/4-1/3 c. fresh herbs, chopped
• fried eggs, to serve
• condiments (soy sauce, Laoganma, pickles, ketchup, mayo, vinegar, etc.), to serve

Directions

1. Combine the sourdough discard, water, salt, and baking soda and mix well.
2. Mix in the green onions and herbs.
3. Heat a tawa or griddle over medium heat.
4. Oil or grease the griddle if necessary.
5. Drop a scoop of batter (~1/4 c.) onto the hot griddle and cook until bubbles form and edges look dry.
6. Flip and cook until browned on both sides and pancake is cooked through.
7. Repeat with remaining batter, cooking 2-3 pancakes at a time.
8. Serve pancakes topped with fried eggs and/or conidements of your choice.

I've been mostly using Bernard Clayton's recipes when making bread lately, but I felt like changing things up a bit this time. I'd been looking at the King Arthur Flour website for pancake recipes anyway and figured that maybe I'd give some of their bread recipes a go. They have quite a few sourdough recipes listed, but this chocolate sourdough sounded particularly interesting. The cocoa makes for a very dark, rich-tasting bread. And the chocolate chunks add a bit of sweetness without being overwhelming.

The recipe claims that this bread is more savoury than sweet. And, while I'd agree that the dough itself is not very sweet, the amount of chocolate worked into it does shift it more away from the savoury end of the spectrum than I was expecting. It's definitely not aggressively sweet or anything and I do think it works well paired with mild cheeses as a sort of sweet-and-savoury combo, but I would still say it leans more savoury than sweet, personally. It's lovely! I just wouldn't necessarily classify it as "savoury".

Chocolate Sourdough Bread

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

Preferment

• 25g ripe (fed) starter @ 100% hydration
• 210g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 145g water

Dough

• 480g water
• 500-600g hard (strong/high grade/bread) or all-purpose flour
• 36g Dutched (alkalized) cocoa
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 200g dark chocolate, chopped

Directions

1. Combine the starter, whole wheat flour, and water and mix well.
2. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 12-16 hours.
3. The next morning, add the water to the preferment and use your fingers to break up the dough and mix it into the water.
4. Mix vigorously for a few seconds, then begin adding the flour, cocoa, and salt. Start with 500g of flour, but add a little more if the dough seems excessively sticky or loose. That said, it's probably better for the dough to be a little too loose than too tight.
5. Mix very well, then cover and allow to rest for 30-60 minutes.
6. Perform a bowl fold, cover and rest for another hour or so.
7. Wet your bench/work surface and turn the dough out. Press it into a large, flat rectangle.
8. Sprinkle the chocolate evenly over the surface.
9. Perform a letter fold (folding the dough into thirds) and then roll it up (as if shaping a large loaf).
10. Return to bowl and allow to rest for another 30-60 minutes.
11. Repeat the folding/rolling and resting process until the dough begins to feel light and well-risen. (Probably 1-3 additional fold/rest periods, but it will depend on the temperature of your room and the activity of your starter.)
12. Knock the dough back and divide into two equal portions.
13. Round each one, cover, and rest for 10-20 minutes.
14. Shape into loaves and place, seam-side-up, into well-floured bannetons.
15. Cover and place in fridge to proof overnight.²
16. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 250°C (475°F) and put a kettle on to boil.
17. Grease a baking sheet and dust it with cornmeal.
18. Turn the loaves out onto the prepared baking sheet. Optionally lightly wet the surface of the loaves.
19. Slash loaves as desired.
20. Once the oven is preheated, pour some boiling water into a large pan and place it on the lower oven rack.
21. Place the bread on a rack set above the pan of boiling water and bake at 250°C (475°F) for 15 minutes.
22. Reduce heat to 200°C (400°F), remove water pan, and bake until done (~15 minutes longer).
23. Turn oven off and allow bread to stand in hot oven for an additional 5-10 minutes.
24. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

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¹ I didn't have room in the fridge when making this bread, so I proofed mine at room temperature. I think it took ~2 hours at 21°C (70°F). ^Back

This recipe comes courtesy of the King Arthur Flour website. I used it to make sourdough pancakes. But the authors note that it works equally well for waffles. I cannot vouch for the outcome when waffling. But it did make tasty pancakes!

The recipe as written calls for entirely white flour. But, because my starter is based on whole wheat, I opted to use a mix of white and whole wheat flour. I figure the extra fibre is a nice bonus and having at least some whole wheat flour in the sponge is probably helpful for the starter as well.

The sponge rose nicely overnight and bubbled up dramatically when the baking soda was added in the morning. Despite this, the pancakes were not quite as fluffy as I was expecting. They were still very good. Just not as soft and light as I'm used to getting from some of my other buttermilk pancake recipes. But, they're easy and use a generous quantity of sourdough discard, so I really can't complain!

This recipe makes a fairly big batch of pancakes. I didn't count, but I'd say I got well in excess of two dozen (using ~1/4 c. of batter per pancake). I think, between us, we ate about a dozen for breakfast and it looked like there were still maybe a dozen and a half to two dozen going in the fridge afterward. So, this is a fairly generous recipe.

Given that I was making such a big batch, I decided to try adding some mix-ins to some of the batter. I made the first 10 or so plain and then, for the remaining batter, I added a combination of pecans, toasted sesame seeds, and white poppy seeds. (A slightly tweaked version of a suggested set of mix-ins from The Breakfast Bible. Mostly because a) I wanted a higher proportion of pecans and more mix-ins overall than the original recipe called for and b) because I couldn't find my regular poppy seeds, so I ended up using some white poppy seeds instead.)

Given that I did these pancakes two different ways, I debated whether or not to write this up as one recipe or two. I think normally I would simply do the batter write-up and then add a separate section at the bottom of the post with a variant that includes the mix-ins. But I also added toppings (peanut butter, maple syrup, and bacon) to the pancakes with the mix-ins. And, at that point, it feels like it begins to approach the point of being a new dish/recipe. So, with that in mind, I decided to make a separate post for the gussied up version and only include the plain batter here.

Sourdough Pancakes (or Waffles)

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

Sponge

• 225g sourdough discard @ 100% hydration
• 120g all-purpose flour
• 120g whole wheat flour
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 2 c. buttermilk

Batter

• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1/4 c. unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tsp. baking soda

Directions

1. Combine the discard, flours, sugar, and buttermilk in a large bowl and mix well.
2. Cover and let stand at room temperature for ~12 hours.
3. The next morning, stir down the sponge and mix in the eggs, salt, and butter.
4. Sift in the baking soda and mix very well.
5. Let the batter stand while you preheat a griddle or tawa over medium heat. For waffles, preheat your waffle iron.
6. Lightly grease the tawa as needed and make your pancakes, using ~1/4 c. of batter for each and cooking until golden-brown on both sides. For waffles, pour a portion of batter into the preheated waffle iron and cook according to manufacturer directions.
7. Repeat until all batter has been used.
8. Serve with your favourite toppings.

I've been craving waffles for the last couple days. Conveniently, I am still working my way through the waffle cookbook. Somewhat less conveninetly, the only recipes I have yet to make from it are the dessert waffles (and a few of the toppings). I know that I could just revisit one of the earlier recipes, but where would be the fun in that?!

These waffles Bostock certainly make for a decadent option, but they are reasonably quick and easy to make. They basically answer the question: What if we replaced the pastry of a Bakewell tart with waffles?

Yanagihara suggests using either basic, buttermilk, or malted waffles as the base for this offering. My sourdough starter really needed some TLC though, so I opted for a sourdough waffle instead. Honestly, I think this approach worked out even better. The frangipane is very rich and both it and the jam are quite sweet, so having a relatively lean, whole wheat waffle with a bit of a sour tang to it helped to balance the flavours out a bit. I mean, I'm sure the other options would've been fine, but I actually really liked how the sourdough waffles worked out.

Waffles Bostock

Slightly adapted from Waffles: Sweet, Savory, Simple by Dawn Yanagihara

Ingredients

• 100g ground almonds (almond flour)
• 100g sugar
• 1/8 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. almond extract
• 6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
• 4 sourdough waffles (or other waffle of your choice)
• 6-8 Tbsp. jam¹ (preferably raspberry, strawberry, cherry, or apricot)
• sliced almonds, glacé cherries, and/or maraschino cherries, to serve

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F).
2. Combine ground almonds, sugar, and salt and mix well, breaking up any lumps.
3. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and almond extract.
4. Add the butter and mix well.
5. Place the waffles on a baking sheet.
6. Spread 1 1/2 to 2 Tbsp. of jam onto each waffle.
7. Spoon ~1/4 of the frangipane (almond mixture) onto each waffle and spread into an even layer.
8. Top each waffle with ~2 Tbsp. of sliced almonds and/or a glacé cherry (if using).
9. Bake at 200°C (400°F) until frangipane is set (10-15 minutes).
10. Add a maraschino cherry to each waffle (if using/desired).
11. Optionally sprinkle with a little icing sugar before serving.

¹ We ended up using strawberry jam for two of the waffles and spread the other two with some of my dad's homemade red currant jelly! ^Back

I will say right off that this bread didn't go quite to plan. I made the dough, let it ferment for a few hours, then decided that it wasn't ready for shaping yet and put it down in the cold room for the night. Which would have been fine... had I remembered it in the morning. But I completely forgot about it down there and didn't think of it again until nearly dinnertime the next day. By which point it had climbed nearly to the top of the bowl and was a bit overfermented and somewhat less structured than one might hope. Possibly I could have built the structure up a bit more with some additional coil folds. But, by that point, I just wanted to get it into the oven and be done with it. So I just rounded it, shaped it, gave it a (relatively) quick final rise, baked it off, and called it a day!

So, part of the problem was my own lack of organization. That said, I also question the baking instructions for this one. The recipe calls for baking the loaves at 250°C (475°F) for 25 minutes and then giving them another 20 minutes at 230°C (450°F). That seemed like way too long at way too high a temperature to me. I'm used to giving sourdoughs 10-15 minutes at 230-250°C (450-475&dge;F), followed by another 20-30 minutes in the 160-200°C (325-400°F) range. Their recommended times and temperatures seemed a bit nuts to me.

I actually did start my loaves out at 250°C (475°F) for 15 minutes. But, after that first 15 minutes, the loaves were already getting pretty dark. My instinct at that point would normally be to drop the temperature down to 180°C (350°F), but, since this recipe still called for another 10 minutes at 250°C (475°F), I decided to split the difference and drop it down to 220°C (425°F) for the next 10 minutes. By the time it had reached the end of its first 25 minutes of baking the crust was very dark indeed and on the verge of being burnt. But the interior of the bread was still clearly not remotely cooked. So, at that point, to prevent the crust from turning to charcoal, I dropped the temperature all the way down to 160°C (325°F) and baked it for the remaining 20 minutes.

In retrospect, I think my standard 15 minutes at 230°C (450°F) followed by 20 minutes at 180°C (350°F) with a possible 5-10 minutes of "curing" in the hot oven would have been just fine. Oh well... At least now I know.

Sesame Sourdough

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

• 50g ripe (fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 550g hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour
• 380g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 23g (3 1/2 tsp.) coarse sea salt
• 200g sesame seeds, divided
• 745g water
• 1 Tbsp. honey

Directions

1. Make sure your starter is good and active.
2. Combine the starter, white flour, whole wheat flour, salt, 95g of the sesame seeds, water, and honey and mix well.
3. The dough should be fairly wet and loose. Use a bowl scraper and/or your hand to work it against the side of the bowl and do several bowl folds.
4. Cover and allow to ferment at room temperature for 6-12 hours, doing at least four bowl folds during this time.
5. Once dough is puffy and well-risen, knock it back and turn out onto a well-floured surface.
6. Divide into two equal portions and round each one.
7. Cover and allow to rest for 10-20 minutes.
8. Lightly flour two bannetons (preferably with rice flour).
9. Spread ~1/2 of the remaining sesame seed on the work surface.
10. Flip one of the dough balls smooth-side down onto the sesame seeds and press it flat.
11. Shape your loaf by doing a letter fold followed by rolling it up, jelly-roll-style.
12. Place the loaf, seam-side-up, into one of the bannetons.
13. Repeat shaping process with remaining sesame seeds and dough.
14. Cover and proof at room temperature for 1-4 hours.
15. Preheat oven to 230°C (450°F).
16. Boil some water and grease a baking sheet and dust it with cornmeal while the oven preheats.
17. Turn the loaves out onto the prepared baking sheet and slash as desired.
18. Pour some boiling water into a large pan and place it on the bottom oven rack.
19. Put the loaves in the oven on the rack above the water pan and bake at 230°C (450°F) for 15 minutes.
20. Remove water pan, reduce oven temperature to 180°C (350°F) and continue baking for another 20-25 minutes.
21. Turn off oven and let loaves stand in hot oven for 5-10 minutes.
22. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Laurel's Kitchen is generally my go-to for pizza dough. It's fantastic! The texture and flavour are always wonderful, it bakes up beautifully, and it's 100% whole wheat! And, honestly, I would have used it again today -- without a moment's hesitation -- except that my sourdough starter was looking mighty hungry and I really needed an excuse to use it. So I went poking through the King Arthur Flour to look for a soudough pizza crust recipe instead.

This recipe is more of a "faux" sourdough. It uses a combination of sourdough discard and commercial yeast. I definitely don't like it as well as the Laruel's Kitchen version. But it was easy to throw together, used up sourdough starter, and got the job done. So no complaints here. And, I will grant that it was very easy to work with. It just didn't have quite as nice a texture as my usual crust. (Although part of that may have been just how emaciated my starter was and a lack of adequate rising time.) Either way, it still worked well. We had pizza for dinner. Everyone was happy.

Faux Sourdough Pizza Dough

Slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

• 300g hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 3/4 tsp. instant yeast (or 1 tsp. active dry yeast)
• 250g sourdough discard @ 100% hydration
• 140g warm water

Directions

1. Combine flour, salt, and yeast and mix well.
2. Pour in sourdough discard and water.
3. Work dry ingredients into wet by hand or by dough hook.
4. Knead (by hook or by hand) until smooth and elastic. Add a little more flour or water as necessary to get a relatively soft, supple dough. (Knead for 15-20 minutes by hand or 3-4 minutes by hook).
5. Cover and set aside to rise for 2-4 hours.
6. Knock the dough back, divide into two equal portions, and round each one.
7. Cover and allow to rest for 10-15 minutes.
8. Working with one portion of dough at a time, stretch or roll out into desired shape.
9. Cover and allow to rise for 15-20 minutes.
10. Top and bake as desired.

This bread ended up going really off-piste. It was meant to be a simple white sourdough bread with a tiny hit of ginger in the sponge. But I ended up with some excess soaked bulgur, so I just dumped it into the dough. And I ended up using less flour than called for since the dough seemed way too dry, even with the extra water contributed by the soaked bulgur. I think I also ended up leaving out the cream of tartar and mixing in some sourdough discard as a way to simultaneously incorporate more acidity and moisture. But I don't quite remember all the details since I failed to do this write-up immediately after making it and didn't even have all the measurements to begin with!

Possibly, given how many blanks and question marks are going to end up in this recipe, I should forgo the write-up altogether. But it ended up being one of TF's favourite breads, so I feel like I should at least make an attempt at organizing some notes for future reference.

Starter White Bread with Bulgur

Adapted from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

Ingredients

Sponge

• 125g active (fed) starter @ 100% hydration
• 90g all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 c. water, divided
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. ground ginger

Dough

• 1/2 c. skim milk powder
• 250g sourdough discard
• 1 c. bulgur, soaked overnight¹
• ~240g all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/4 c. lard²

Directions

1. Make sure to feed your starter and get it nice and active before mixing the sponge.
2. Combine the starter, flour, and 1/4 c. of the water and let stand, uncovered, for two hours.
3. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, combine the sugar, ginger, and water.
4. Once the starter mixture has sat for two hours, pour the liquid over, cover, and let stand at room temperature overnight.
5. The next day, uncover the sponge and mix well.
6. Add the skim milk powder, sourdough discard, bulgur, ~60g of flour, baking soda, and salt and beat for ~1 minute on medium speed (or ~50 strokes by hand).
7. Add the lard and ~100g of flour and beat into a smooth batter.
8. Switch to dough hook and gradually work in flour until the dough comes together and cleans the sides of the bowl.
9. Continue kneading with dough hook for a few minutes or turn out onto work surface and knead until supple and elastic (10-20 minutes by hand; maybe only 2-4 by machine).
10. Cover and let rest for ~20 minutes.
11. Divide the dough into two equal portions and round each one.
12. Cover and let rest for another 10-20 minutes.
13. Meanwhile, grease two 20x10cm (8x4") loaf pans.
14. Shape each round into a loaf and place, seam-side-down, into the prepared loaf pans.
15. Brush the top of each loaf with a little melted butter if desired.
16. Cover and let rise at room temperature until fully risen (2-4 hours³).
17. Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F).
18. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 30-45 minutes.
19. If crust is insufficiently brown, remove loaves from pans and return to oven for 5-10 minutes.
20. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

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¹ Since I was initially planning on using the bulgur for a completely different recipe where the volume of water used to soak it didn't matter, I didn't measure it. I have no idea how much water I used. It was enough that the bulgur was fairly wet without being soupy. The water had been almost entirely absorbed with only a very small amount pooling at the bottom of the bowl, but it was definitely saturated and the grains were clearly holding a lot of moisture. ^Back
2 Rather than using store-bought lard, I actually tossed in ~1/4 c. of the fat that rendered out of the pork shoulder I'd cooked the day before for the pulled pork with peach-mustard sauce. I'm not sure if this had any impact on the flavour or not. The fat looked very smooth and white, but it may have added some subtle flavours to the bread that would not have been present if I'd used commercial lard. I'm not sure, but I figured it was worth noting. ^Back
3 I don't remember how long I let this bread rise for, but I remember it being significantly longer than the 2 hours specified in the recipe. I think 4 hours is probably about right. Of course, this will vary a fair bit depending on your room temperature and how active your starter is and your flour and all sorts of other things. ^Back

Sourdough Whole Wheat Bread (Bernard Clayton)

I'm not sure what's up with this recipe, but it was way, way too dry. Overall, the recipe calls for 6-7 c. of flour, 1 c. of starter, and only 1 1/2 c. of water. It doesn't specify a hydration level for the starter but, assuming 100% hydration, that only gives ~50% hydration for the final dough. I managed to incorporate 4 1/2 c. of flour before the dough got so stiff and dry that it wasn't even really dough anymore. I ended up having to work a bunch more water in just to get it back to a useable texture again. I didn't measure, but I think I had probably added another 1/2 c. of water by the end of kneading.

I got a decent loaf of bread out in the end, but just one and not two like the recipe promised. And I had to change the proportions so much that it barely counts as the same recipe anymore.

Sourdough Whole Wheat Bread

Adapted from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

Ingredients

Sponge

• 250g active (fresh/fed) starter @ 100% hydration
• 1 1/2 c. warm water (45°C)
• 300g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour

Dough

• 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 250g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour

Directions

1. Make sure your starter is well-fed and active. If it's not, feed 50g starter with 100g each of flour and water and let it ferment overnight.
2. Once the starter is active, add the water and flour for the sponge and mix well. Cover and ferment at room temperature for 8-12 hours.
3. Once sponge has fermented, mix in the yeast and the salt.
4. Work in the flour 1/4 c. at a time (either by hand or with the flat beater of a stand mixer).
5. Cover and allow dough to rest for 10-15 minutes.
6. Knead by hand for ~30 minutes or 5-7 minutes with a dough hook. Work in a little more flour or water as necessary to achieve a good consistency.
7. Cover and allow to rise (~1 hour at room temperature or overnight in the fridge).
8. Knock the dough back, knead a few strokes, round, cover, and rest for 10-15 minutes.
9. Grease a 23x13 (9x5") loaf pan.
10. Press the dough flat, letter fold, and roll up to form your loaf. Place, seam-side-down, in prepared pan.
11. Cover and set aside to rise at room temperature. (I didn't time it, but probably ~45 minutes.)
12. Preheat oven to 220°C (425°F).
13. Brush loaves with a bit of water and slit tops.
14. Bake at 220°C (425°F) for 15 minutes, then reduce temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for another 20-30 minutes.
15. Once loaf is done, turn off oven and leave loaf in hot oven for 5-10 minutes.
16. Allow to cool in pan for 5-10 minutes before turning out onto wire rack to finish cooling.

Pumpernickel au Ferment Aigre

This is another "faux" sourdough recipe from my new Bernard Clayton book. It makes a fantastic crusty rye loaf full of molasses and caraway. This may be one of my favourite breads ever. I think it would be interesting to try it as a pure sourdough -- without the added commercial yeast on day 2 -- but this approach certainly works fine and does speed up the process a bit.

I'm still getting used to how to work with rye flour. It is much lower in gluten than wheat flour and the dough tends to be somewhat sticky and flow-y even when at a reasonable hydration and properly kneaded. I think that I got this one just about right, but I know that I definitely need more practice with rye to get a better feel for it. That said, I'm certainly happy with how these loaves came out. They pancaked a bit during baking (possibly slightly overproofed), but the flavour and texture were both excellent, so no complaints here!

Sourdough Pumpernickel

Slightly adapted from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

Ingredients

Sponge

• 3/4 c. potato water (from cooking potatoes for dough)
• 250g active (fresh/fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 1/4 c. molasses
• 300g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour

Dough

• 1 c. boiling water
• 1/4 c. cornmeal
• 1 c. mashed potatoes
• 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast
• 1-2 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 2 Tbsp. oil
• 1-2 Tbsp. caraway seeds
• 360g rye flour
• 1/2 c. hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp. water

Directions

1. Cut up one or two potatoes (more if they're very small) and boil until tender. You want enough to make at least 1 c. of mashed potatoes.
2. Reserve 3/4 c. of the potato cooking water, then drain and mash the potatoes. Do not add any salt or butter!
3. Put the mashed potatoes in the fridge to be used in the dough tomorrow.
4. Combine the starter, molasses, whole wheat flour, and reserved potato water and mix well.
5. Cover and allow to ferment at room temperature for 8-12 hours.
6. When you are ready to continue with the recipe, whisk the boiling water into the cornmeal.
7. Mix in the mased potatoes.
8. If the potato-cornmeal mixture is still very hot, set it aside to cool a little before adding it to the sponge.
9. Once cooled (body temperature or slightly warmer is fine), add the potato mixture to the sponge.
10. Mix in the yeast, then mix in 1 Tbsp. of the salt.
11. Add the oil and 1 Tbsp. of the caraway seeds.
12. Mix in the rye flour ~1/4 c. at a time.
13. Once most of the rye flour has been incorporated, spread the last 1/4 c. or so on the work surface and turn the dough out on top of it.
14. Knead the dough, gradually working the remaining rye flour in.
15. Keep kneading the dough until it becomes supple. The dough will probably stick to your hands, so keep them well-floured. Once the rye flour is fully incorporated, use the white flour to flour your hands and the work surface as needed. It should hit a point where it starts to smooth out and become somewhat elastic. It will still be sticky at this point, but markedly smoother. Don't try to knead it until the stickiness goes away, it won't. Don't keep adding flour either; the dough will become too stiff. Just use what you need to get it to the point of smoothing out.
16. Once done kneading, round the dough (as best you can) and place it in a covered bowl to rise at room temperature for 2-3 hours.
17. Once the dough has fully risen, knock it back and divide into two equal portions.
18. Round each portion, cover, and rest for 10-15 minutes.
19. Shape as desired and place on a prepared baking sheet or in bannetons to proof.
20. Cover and proof at room temperature for ~1 hour or overnight in the fridge.
21. Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F).
22. If loaves are not already on a baking sheet, grease a baking sheet, dust it with cornmeal, and turn the loaves out onto the prepared sheet.
23. Beat the egg with the water and brush the loaves with the egg wash.
24. Sprinkle each loaf with either 1/2 Tbsp. of caraway seeds or 1/2 Tbsp. of coarse sea salt.
25. Slash as desired.
26. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 40-50 minutes.
27. Turn oven off and leave loaves in hot oven for another 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool.

---

Variations

Vegan Version

Ingredients

Sponge

• 3/4 c. potato water (from cooking potatoes for dough)
• 250g active (fresh/fed) sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 1/4 c. organic molasses
• 300g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour

Dough

• 1 c. boiling water
• 1/4 c. cornmeal
• 1 c. mashed potatoes
• 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast
• 1-2 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 2 Tbsp. oil
• 1-2 Tbsp. caraway seeds
• 360g rye flour
• 1/2 c. hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour
• 1 Tbsp. non-dairy milk
• 1/2 tsp. agave syrup

Combine the non-dairy milk and agave syrup and brush it on the loaves before baking. Sprinkle with caraway or coarse salt and bake as directed above.

This hybrid sourdough bread uses both sourdough starter and instant yeast to get some of the flavour of sourdough with the speed of commercial yeast. The starter is fermented overnight in a sponge and then mixed with the rest of the flour, some salt, and instant yeast the next morning. I found this approach to work okay, but I think the hydration and timings need some tweaking. The dough was much too dry and I ended up leaving a large quantity of flour out and still had to add a little more water just to make it workable. And the recipe also only called for a 15-minute "rest" rather than any sort of proper rising time or bulk ferment. I went with this on this occasion, but I don't think I'd do it that way again. Next time I'd give it more water and a full (at least 1 hour) rising period before shaping the loaves.

I also think I need to practice with the KitchenAid a little more to get a better feel for how much kneading time is actually required with the dough hook. I'm used to kneading dough for anywhere from 20-40 minutes by hand, but obviously that's not required with an electric mixer. Clayton suggests that this dough requires 10 minutes of kneading whether by hand or by dough hook, but I find that hard to believe. That doesn't seem like nearly enough hand kneading and possibly too much maching kneading. I went for ~6 minutes with the dough hook this time and I think that was probably a bit too much. But it was hard to tell when the dough was already so stiff and dry to begin with! Next time I'll aim for a softer dough and see if I can get a better idea of how much time with the dough hook is actually required. (Or just knead it by hand. I just wanted to give the stand mixer a try so I'd have it as an option for days when I'm feeling too tired for half an hour of hand kneading.)

Whole Wheat Faux Sourdough

Slightly adapted from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

Ingredients

Sponge

• 250g active (ripe/fed) starter @ 100% hydration
• 2 c. water
• 300g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour

Dough

• 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 450g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 120g hard (strong/high grade/bread) or all-purpose flour

Directions

1. Make sure your starter is nice and active. I like to take 50g of starter and feed it with 100g each of flour and water the morning before I want to bake the bread.
2. Once the starter is nice and active and bubby, add the water and flour to make the sponge. (I did this right before I went to bed so that it could ferment overnight and be ready for mixing in the morning.)
3. Cover the sponge and allow to ferment at room temperature for 10-12 hours.
4. The next morning, mix in the yeast followed by the salt.
5. Then begin mixing in the whole wheat flour ~1/2 c. at a time. (If using an electric mixer, use the flat beater for this part.)
6. If using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and begin adding the white flour ~1/4 c. at a time. If kneading by hand, turn the dough out onto the work surface and work the white flour in as you knead the dough.
7. If using an electric mixer, you will probably need to work the dough for somewhere between 4-8 minutes (I'm still working on figuring out the timing). For kneading by hand, aim for at least 20 minutes, 30 if you're a slow/inefficient kneader.
8. Shape into a ball and place in a covered bowl to rise for 30-60 minutes (also still working on pinning down the timing for this).
9. Once the dough has fully risen (use the finger poke test), knock it back, divide into two equal portions, and round each one.
10. Cover the dough balls and set aside to rest for ~10 minutes.
11. Grease two loaf pans (preferably 8x4"/20x10cm).
12. Once the dough balls have relaxed a bit, shape them into loaves and place into prepared pans.
13. Cover and let rise at room temperature for 30-60 minutes¹.
14. Preheat oven to 220°C (425°F) and get some boiling water ready.
15. Place a pan of boiling water on the bottom oven rack and brush the tops of the loaves with a bit of water.
16. Slash the loaves as desired.
17. Place loaves on oven rack above the pan of boiling water and bake at 220°C (425°F) until the crust has some nice colour to it (15-20 minutes).
18. Remove pan of water and reduce oven temperature to 180°C (350°F).
19. Continue baking until done (25-30 minutes).
20. Allow to cool in tins for ~5 minutes, then remove from pans and transfer to wire rack to finish cooling.

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¹ The original recipe called for a 2-hour rise here. But it should proof faster when given a longer time on the first rise. As with all the other timings, this still needs a bit of trial and error to dial it in. ^Back

I don't have much experience with buckwheat flour, so this bread was a bit of an adventure. To be fair, the dough was still mostly composed of wheat -- and just plain old all-purpose flour at that -- so it was fairly easy to handle and well-behaved. Still, it was a nice way to ease into buckwheat and give it a try.

The final bread came out with a nice structure that slices and toasts well. The colour is quite dark (even though only ~1/3 of the flour used was buckwheat). And the whole grain gives it a nice flavour as well. I might try using some of it to make a strata for breakfast tomorrow.

NB: This recipe produces more sponge than required to make the dough! You get ~3 c. of sponge, but the recipe only requires 2 c. Be prepared to use the rest in another recipe! Alternatively, make 50% more dough and make some rolls or an extra loaf of bread.

Clayton advises that this recipe makes ~4 lbs. of dough and suggests making four small (1-lb.) loaves in either 7x3" (18x7.5cm) loaf pans or 1-lb. coffee tins. I don't have any 1-lb. pans, so I opted for two large loaves instead and used a 9x5" (23x13cm) and a 8.5x4.5" (21.5x11.5cm) pan. This seems to have worked well and gave me nicely shaped and sized loaves, although I think two 8.5x4.5" pans would have been ideal.

Buckwheat Bread

Slightly adapted from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

Ingredients

Sponge

• 2 c. water @ 50°C (~125°F)
• 2 c. (~240g) all-purpose flour¹
• 1 Tbsp. (~17g) coarse sea salt
• 1 Tbsp. (~13g) sugar
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast (or 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast)

Dough

• 1 1/2 c. water @ 50°C (~125°F)
• 1/3 c. skim milk powder
• 4 Tbsp. (~50g) brown sugar
• 2 c. buckwheat flour²
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast (or 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast)
• 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tsp. (~12g) coarse sea salt
• ~4 c. (~480g) all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp. butter, melted
• 1-2 Tbsp. cream

Directions

1. Combine the water, flour, salt, sugar, and yeast for the sponge.
2. Mix well, cover, and let stand at room temperature overnight. Alternatively, feed up an established starter and use that once it's nice and active and bubbly.
3. The next morning, transfer 2 c. (~450g) of the sponge (or active starter) to a large mixing bowl.
4. Add the water, milk powder, sugar, and buckwheat flour and stir to combine.
5. Add the yeast and beat/mix for 25-30 strokes (or ~1 minute with the flat beater of an electric mixer).
6. Add the butter and salt and mix for ~200 strokes (or until the batter starts forming ropey strings in the bowl of an electric mixer).
7. Working with ~1/2 c. at a time, mix in ~3 c. of the flour (switching to a dough hook for mixing if using an electric mixer).
8. If mixing by hand, turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and knead for 10-15 minutes, working in the remaining flour as you go. You may not need all of it! (If using an electric mixer, keep adding flour a little bit at a time until the dough clears the sides of the bowl and forms a smooth ball.)
9. Shape the dough into a smooth ball and place it in a covered bowl to rise. Allow to rise at room temperature for ~1 hour.
10. Turn the dough out and knead for a few strokes to press out the gas bubbles.
11. Shape as desired and place into greased tins (if using).
12. Brush the tops of the loaves with the melted butter, cover, and let rise at room temperature for ~45 minutes.
13. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 30-40 minutes (the timing will vary depending on the size and shape of the loaves).
14. Brush the tops of the loaves with cream and return to oven. Bake for another 5-10 minutes.
15. Turn loaves out of pans and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

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¹ I was running low on AP flour, so I used a mix of AP and hard whole wheat flour for my sponge. I think I had a slightly scant cup of AP flour + a slightly generous cup of WW. Next time I might try using my regular WW starter and 100% WW flour in the sponge. The overnight fermentation would give the bran time to properly hydrate and it would be nice to have a higher proportion of whole grains in the bread. If that goes well, I might try replacing some of the AP flour from the main dough with WW as well. And I can experiment with changing up my mixing technique. If I'm going for something closer to 100% whole grain, then it might make sense to switch to something more closely matching the Laurel's Kitchen approach. Anyway, that's all just notes for future me and not really relevant to the present version of the recipe. ^Back
2 Sorry, I forgot to weigh the buckwheat flour! I'm guessing that it probably would've been somewhere between 250g and 300g, but I'm not entirely sure. I'll try to remember to weigh everything next time. ^Back

I haven't actually had a chance to slice into these loaves and try them yet, so I can't report on the final results. But the loaves baked up beautifully and the little piece of dough that I tasted before they went into the oven was delicious! So, given that, I have high hopes for the bread itself and am really looking forward to trying it once we've finished our current loaf of bread.

This is a pretty straight-forward "faux" sourdough with a few quick oats standing in for some of the flour. I say "faux" sourdough because, although you make an overnight sponge with sourdough starter, you also add dry yeast to the dough when mixing it up, so it rises and it handled more like a standard non-sourdough bread. That said, I'm sure you could make it as a "true" sourdough without the commercial yeast if you really wanted to. You'd just have to give it a much longer rising/fermentation time and adjust how you handled it a little bit.

Sourdough Oatmeal Bread

Slightly adapted from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads

Ingredients

Sponge

• 1 c. (~225g) active (fresh/fed) sourdough starter
• 1 c. water @ 40°C (~105°F)
• 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour¹

Dough

• 1 c. water @ 50°C (~125°F)
• 1/2 c. skim milk powder
• 2 Tbsp. honey
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast (or 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast)
• 1 c. quick oats
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ~4 c. all-purpose flour²

Directions

1. Combine the starter, water, and flour in a large bowl, mix well, cover, and allow to ferment for 8-10 hours. (Use cold water if you would like a longer, slower fermentation.)
2. Stir down the sponge and mix in the water, milk powder, and honey.
3. Add the yeast.
4. Add the oatmeal, sugar, salt, and baking soda and stir to combine.
5. Add theh flour, 1/4 c. at a time, until the dough comes together into a nice ball. Mixing may be done either by hand or with an electric mixer using a dough hook. (You may need more than 4 c. of flour, but don't go crazy!)
6. Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead by hand for 10-20 minutes (or ~10 minutes in an electric mixter with a dough hook).
7. Shape the dough into a ball, cover, and allow to rest for ~10 minutes.
8. Knead the dough for a few strokes, then divide into two roughly equal portions.
9. Shape each portion into a ball, cover, and rest for another 5 minutes or so.
10. Shape your loaves as desired and place in greased loaf pans³.
11. Cover and allow to rise at room temperature for ~75 minutes.
12. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F).
13. Slash the loaves as desired and then bake at 200°C (400°F) for ~20 minutes.
14. Reduce heat to 180°C (350°F) and bake for another 15-20 minutes.
15. If desired, brush the crust of the loaf with some melted butter. This will make the crust softer and shinier.
16. Turn loaves out of tins and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

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¹ I used AP flour here because I was trying to use up the leftover sponge from the buckwheat bread that I'd made the day previously. However, if I were to make this bread with my usual whole wheat starter, I would've used WW flour (or possibly a 1:1 mix of WW to AP). ^Back
2 Clayton calls for "approximately" 2-4 c. of flour here. I ended up using nearly 5 c. before my dough was behaving itself and didn't seem like a wet, sticky mess. Use the recipe as a guideline, but listen to the dough. ^Back
3 Clayton recommends two 8x4" loaf pans for this recipe, but since I ended up using significantly more flour than the recipe called for, I decided to make two slightly larger loaves (one 9x5" and one 8.5x4.5"). ³