Wheat bread with rye sourdough starter
Description
It goes perfectly with tea and coffee. To bake wheat bread you don’t have to use only a wheat sourdough starter; on a rye starter it turns out just as tasty and appetizing. I’m sharing my own recipe, with weights that have been tested and used for many years. The step-by-step recipe will help you bake delicious, fragrant bread. Serve warm or cooled. Perfect with tea.
Instructions
- 1
Step 1
Prepare the ingredients.
- 2
Step 2
Into the dough-mixing container, pour room-temperature water, add rye sourdough starter, sugar, and 2–3 tablespoons of flour from the total amount. Mix until smooth, cover with a lid, and leave to ferment for 30 minutes.
- 3
Step 3
Add salt and the remaining flour to the starter, knead the dough. If desired, to speed up fermentation you may add a small piece (2 grams) of fresh compressed yeast. Leave the dough at room temperature to ferment for 3 hours.
- 4
Step 4
During fermentation, every hour perform 3 stretch-and-folds using the “stretch and fold” method—that is, “stretch and fold.” Do it like this: pull the far edge of the dough away from you, stretching it to the sides, and fold it over the dough with a motion “forward toward yourself.” Turn the bowl counterclockwise and do exactly the same on all four sides. In this way we saturate the dough with oxygen, develop the gluten, and create fresh layers each time, as when making laminated dough.
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Step 5
After 3 hours of fermentation, lightly dust your work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Do not knead it any further.
- 6
Step 6
Begin shaping the bread. Gently stretch the dough into a flat sheet and fold the top corners of the dough toward each other.
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Step 7
Make one rotation, as though rolling the dough into a jelly roll.
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Step 8
On the left and right, fold the edges of the dough inward to straighten the sides.
- 9
Step 9
Make one more turn with the dough, rolling it into a roll. Pinch the “seam” closed well.
- 10
Step 10
Roll the dough again, stretching it lightly to the sides, and shape into a loaf.
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Step 11
Place the shaped loaf on the baking sheet seam side down, and leave to proof at room temperature for 1 hour.
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Step 12
After one hour of proofing, use a sharp knife or a razor blade to make one or more slashes in any shape you like. Preheat the oven to 250°C, bake for 10 minutes at 250°C, then reduce the temperature to 180°C and bake for about 40 minutes more.
- 13
Step 13
Cool the finished bread to room temperature on a rack.
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Step 14
Well, now you can enjoy your finished loaf. Thanks to the special folding method and the use of starter, it turned out extraordinarily tasty and fragrant, with a crisp crust and a beautiful open crumb inside. You’d hardly guess it was made with rye sourdough starter.