Most people are astonished whenever I talk about how little of time it takes to bake sourdough bread yourself! Just throw all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix well, the let the dough rest for quite a while. During that time you just need to stretch and fold the dough twice. Then shape your bread and finally baking it. All in all, it does take quite some time, but the hands-on time is only a couple of minutes for every step. Alltogether, it might take up to 15 minutes of "work" and after 13-25 hours (depending on the temperature) you're getting a very delicious and healthy, wholegrain sourdough bread. Why don't you try it for yourself?
In case you like your bread with seeds, I advice you to soak them in water beforehand. Otherwise, the seeds will absorb water from the dough and deprive it of water, which means the dough can become a little too dry. The easiest way to determine how much water for which mixture of seeds is necessary, is by using a soaker calculator. I like the soaker calculator off of the blog “Backen mit Freunden“ best.
It's not always easy to describe with words alone how to handle the dough. That's why I highly recommend you also watch the accompanied recipe video (especially if you should be a bread baking beginner).
100 % Wholewheat Sourdough Bread
Little effort, countless variations, magnificent results! Try my recipe for this 100 % wholewheat sourdough bread and catch the spark of excitement! For a 100 % wholewheat bread it is very light and fluffy and there are almost endless ways to modify! Simply create your favorite bread and enjoy your homemade, fresh sourdough bread, including all of the health benefits that come with long proofing times and a sourdough levain.
Ingredients
How it is done:
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Prepare the dough
Add water and sourdough to a bowl, as well as more liquid ingredients like skyr / yogurt / cottage cheese and mix well.
Then add the flour, salt, bread spice and any further add-ins like shredded carrot, zucchini, pumpkin puree, soaked seeds and / or nuts or scald and mix well. Add more water tablespoon by tablespoon until there are no more flour nests and everything is well incorporated.
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Proofing, stretch & fold
Let the dough proof for 12-24 hours. 24 hours if your dough proofs at a room temperature of 18°-20° C (65°-68° F). If it is 5° C (10° F) warmer, proofing time reduces to 12 hours. You should stretch and fold your dough twice during this time (although your bread will also turn out delicious if you don't get to it). For the first set of stretch & folds I like to use the tradition way, for the second time I like to use the Coil Fold (see video).
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Shape your bread
To shape your bread, wet your working surface and take the dough out of the bowl. Now make movements of pulling the dough from the outside to the inside, going all around in a circle (see video). Then turn your dough upside down and pull your dough across your working surface with a hand motion to get more tension. Finally, dust your dough with rice flour on this smooth, tense side and put your dough into a proofing basket, called banneton (the floured side should be on the bottom). Here you can pull again the outside of the dough to the inside to create more tension. Then also dust this side of your bread dough with rice flours and place the covered banneton in the fridge.
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Preheat oven
Put your cast-iron dutch oven, with the lid on, into your oven. Preheat the oven at max temperature (which is 250° C / 480° F for me).
If you prefer to open bake your bread, you can put a pizza stone, instead of the Dutch oven, on a rack in the middle of your oven. Then also place a baking dish at the bottom of your oven and preheat it as well. If you have stainless steel baking beans, you should also put them inside the baking dish and heat them up.
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Baking bread in a Dutch oven
Flip your dough out of the banneton onto a piece of parchment paper and score your bread with a sharp blade (like razor blades). Feel free to express yourself freely and score a beautiful pattern into your bread!
Then, drop your bread carefully into the hot Dutch oven and spray it with water to create more steam. Bake the bread for 25 minutes in the Dutch oven, then lower the temperature to 400 °F (200 °C). Continue baking with the lid removed for another 25 minutes.
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Alternative: Open baking bread
You can also open bake the bread in your oven. Carefully place the parchment paper with your bread on the hot pizza stone and add a good splash of water to your baking dish at the bottom of your oven to create as much steam as possible. Then close the oven door as quickly as possible and let your bread bake for 10 minutes. Then reduce the temperatur to 400 °F (200 °C) and open the oven door to let the steam escape. Also, remove the baking dish from the bottom of your oven. Let the bread bake for another 40 minutes.
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Let bread cool
Carefully remove your bread from the oven and place it on a cooling rack. Let the bread cool down completely before cutting (it continues "baking" while cooling down).
Remark
*You can order the strong extrafine wholewheat flour of the Bio-Mühle Eiling here. This is my recommendation (advertisement). However, I'm not getting any sponsoring or financial compensation from the Bio-Mühle Eiling. I bought and paid all of the ingredients used in this recipe by myself.