Yes! My sourdough and apple bread!

Published on 02/03/2011 | By Monica |

- Prep Time
- 360 Minutes
- Cook Time
- 40 Minutes
- Difficulty Level

After Jonathan and his bread came Javier and the begginers’ bread-course, my trip to Lima and the anxious tic-tac-tic-tac to start my sourdough, my bread, my sandwichs with my breads, my sourdough caring, my loaf bread, baguette, ciabatta, apple-bread, BREAD.

I managed to get effort, dedication and wit all together and supplied myself with rye flour, a pretty old scale (decent enough) and time, organized time. My sourdough almost died on a trip to the beach but with expert help I managed to save it. That’s how I got my first sourdough 100% rye. And that’s how I got my apple-bread.

The wheat flour I used came from the supermarket, one that has not much gluten and does not provide the usual elasticity in a bread. This came along with a positive surprise: bread can be made with any flour. The flavour was special and very nice, perhaps somewhat acid for my taste. I understand this is due to the fact that my sourdough was ‘young’ and that I gave her one overnight feed only. With this I learned that sourdough has to be fed more time in order to eliminate the acidity, increasing yeast, reducing bacteria. Love this micro-world! More things, working on kneading (a looot), fermentation and shaping. Still got 999 left to do!

More pics here!

Sourdough.

Masa_Madre-copia

Day 1. 21:00 p.m.

50 grs de rye flour + 50grs de sink water.

Mix well and leave closed and away from wind currents at room temperature.

Day 2. 21:00 p.m.

Take 50 grs of yesterday’s mix and add 25 grs water. Mix well and add 25 grs rye flour. There should be no lumps. Leave closed and away from wind currents at room temperature.

Day 3. 21:00 p.m.

Repeat the same procedure. Don’t get scared with the smell! It will be very acid at this point because acid bacteria start working. In fact, take it as a good sign.

Day 4. 21:00 p.m.

100 grs of day’s 3 mixture + 75 gr sink water. Mix well and add 75 gr rye flour.

Once the sourdoough has finished feeding herself you’ll have 250 grs of sourdourgh ready to be used for bread. If by any chance you leave it too much time on the sun as it happened to me, don’t go carzy just feed it again and you’ll see how it survives perfectly!

Changing rye sourdough to other flour sourdoughs.

Once you have this sourdough starter you can also take 20 grs and start feeding it with other flours, for example normal white wheat flour and your sourdough will convert itself after a few feeds in a white bread sourdough.

Apple bread.

Ingredients

150 gr fresh and just fed sourdough
150 gr rye flour
300 gr wheat supermarket flour
10 gr salt
265 gr water
1 cup of dried apples

Instructions

Preparation. In bold and cursive I've added some more observations.
The night before starting with the bread I took 50 grams of sourdough and gave her 125 gr water and 125 gr rye flour. Left it all night. Took 150 for the bread and kept the rest for the next one on the fridge. It's best to feed the sourdough in more than once in order to reduce acid flavour. Specially if it's a "new" (young?) sourdough.
Mix the sourdough with the water, previously boiled with the apples and left to cool at room temperature.
Add the flour, mix well and let sit for 30 minutes.
Add the salt and apple and start kneading. Depending on how you see the dough give it more or less rest. I knead for 2 minutes and left it resting for about 15. I did it too many times I believe I over-knead my dough a bit. Remember it's best to knead less than much because the gluten develops naturally once it comes into contact with water.
To test that the dough is ready you can do the windowpane test. You should be able to stretch a piece of dough and see light through it without breaking it. This would be a good indicator of a well developed gluten and that the dough has a good tension.
At this point we leave the dough fermenting until it doubles size ina lightly oiled bowl and covered with film paper to avoid it drying. Aprox. 1 hour and a half was mine. Summer time in Lima.
Shaping time. Divide the dough in the amount of breads you'd like to make. Let rest.
Shape the piece as you'd like and leave it to ferment over a humid and floured cloth. I used sieves+cloth+flour, a good solution since they allowed good air circulation and prevented dryness.
When the dough is close to ready turn on the oven to 240ºC and have it ready. Put the breads in the oven once it's very hot. Add water vapour for the first 12 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 200ºC and leave for 35 minutes aproximately.
Let cool.
Just add butter!