#sourdoughlife — Public Fediverse posts

Ciabatta Recipe

Friends and family have come to like these from the store, I decided to try my own. Very high-hydration dough, minimal working, long ferment, and a slightly cooler-than-normal bake.

• 1000g unbleached bread ("strong") flour.
• 850g water @ ~40--50C / - 100--120F.
• 25g salt
• 200g leaven (100% hydration sourdough starter)
• ~50g each rice flour and cornmeal for dusting.

Dough prep:

Feed your starter 8--12 hours prior to dough prep, as per its moods.

Warm your proofing space if necessary.

I heat water prior to adding it to dough. It can be on the warm side as the ferment's not being added now.

• Combine flour and water, autolyse for 30+ minutes.
• Add salt and leaven, combine well. "Pinching" helps distribute leaven and salt through the dough.
• Cover with damp tea towel and place in proofing space (or countertop if your kitchen is warm enough, ~ 22C / 72F or better).
• Perform four stretch-and-folds with 20--30 minutes between each (waiting 20 minutes for the 1st). Return to proofing space after each.
• After fourth S&F, place in your bulk-proofing container if you're using one, and return to proofing space for another 2--3 hours, if possible. You can also immediately begin the retarded (cold) ferment.
• Transfer to fridge for retarded ferment 12--48 hours.

Baking

Remove dough from fridge ~ 1 hour prior to bake.

Preheat oven to 230C / 450F. Use steam-bake setting if available, otherwise put water in a ~5cm / 2in deep pan in bottom of oven.

Flour working space thoroughly. Dough is quite slack, and another 100--200 grams won't hurt it.

Laminate dough in fresh flour, usually 1 set of folds.

Divide dough into rolls. I find a dozen is about the right size. Eyeball these if you're not OCD, weigh them out if you're like me...

Cut parchment paper to fit your baking sheet, set this near your rolls.

If desired, dust bottoms of rolls with cornmeal, and tops with rice flour.

Score rolls if desired. I use kitchen shears for this.

Bake in well-steamed oven for 20--35 minutes, to desired browning. I tend to turn on convection after 15 minutes or so for even baking. Baking to the lighter rather than darker side seems best.

Remove from oven immediately, cool on wire racks.

Flavour is (as with all sourdough) consistently excellent. Consistency tends to be denser and chewier than store-bought, though I suspect they're using bleached AP flour. Rolls freeze well.

Heat at 230C/450F for 6--8 minutes when serving, add 4--6 minutes if heating from frozen and drop to 200C/400F (heats inside, doesn't overly brown crusts).

#Sourdough #Bread #ciabatta #SourdoughLife #BreadSluts

I can't believe I am admitting this but I traded #biscuits for #crumpets this morning. My #Grandmother would probably clutch her pearls.

Begging forgiveness to all Brits if I am eating the crumpet wrong by adding #preserves / #jam.

What are you doing on this Saturday in June?

#Appalachia #GeorgiaOnMyMind #Georgia #Baking #Backyard #Coffee #Nature #Breakfast #Sourdough #SourdoughLife #SourdoughDiscard

@matthewhowell Cornmeal is also good.

And the frying-pan pizza method is also excellent:

1. Prep dough (I have a 65% hydration sourdough I use), roll out.
2. Pre-heat oven to max temperature (290C / 550F if you can get there).
3. Lightly oil cast-iron frying pan, dust liberally with either cornmeal or semolina.
4. Place dough in pan, form and roll edges.
5. Add toppings.
6. Turn oven to broil, position top rack ~25cm / 6in below flame or element.
7. Cook on stovetop for 5 minutes, until edges of crust just start to brown.
8. Broil for 3-5 minutes under high heat. Check constantly, you want it just starting to crisp on top, but not burnt. Pizza cooks quickly.
9. Remove from oven, slide onto cutting board (spatula can help here), slice and serve.

Note that everything out of the oven is HOT, so use good oven mitts or a towel to protect your hands. I have fairly frequent burns here myself 😺

My basic method has evolved from this video: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=HXAW2GseICs

Looking at that just now, my process differs in all kinds of ways (different ingredients --- ordinary white flour rather than 00, though I do add semolina if available, prepped pizza sauce, etc.). The constants are the use of the frying pan (I haven't been pre-heating mine, though I might start doing that), and the stovetop-to-broiler cooking method.

Oh, and that pizza dough makes amazingly good rolls, or calzones:

• 1000 g flour (any blend of white & whole wheat to your preference)
• 100g semolina
• 650 -- 700g water (I pre-heat to about 38C / 100F, about 2.5 -- 3 minutes in microwave).
• 20--25g salt
• 100g olive oil
• 200g sourdough starter

You can autolyse flour & water if you like or just combine all ingredents. I've experimented with dough quantity (90 --- 150g per 25cm / 10in pie), all are thin but workable crust, you can use more dough if you prefer. Quantity above is good for about 16 pies, which is probably more than you want at a sitting. I'll use the same batch for pizzas and a few batches of rolls or calzones, which are basically pizza with the dough folded over the top and then baked at 230C / 450F for about 35--45 minutes.

Both rolls and calzones can be baked in a convection toaster-oven if you prefer, which is a bit faster and heats the kitchen less than using the full oven.

#sourdough #JustSourdoughThings #SourdoughLife #pizza #calzones