Overnight Sour Dough

[Katiej]

Overnight sour dough

This is my take on sour dough bread, a method I came up with using everything I’ve been taught by our wonderful bread queen Chookie and from what I’ve read online, especially on the blog “Fig Jam and Lime Cordial”.

 
Around lunch time take your starter from the fridge and feed it

After dinner, the starter should be active and bubbly

Place 200g of the active sour dough starter into your TMX bowl
Add in this order:
280g water
500g white baker’s flour
1 teaspoon salt

(If you want a spelt loaf, add 250g white baker’s flour & 250g wholegrain spelt flour, increase water by 20g)

Knead for 2 minutes
(check the dough whilst kneading and add a little more water if required)

Leave the dough in the TMX bowl and wait an hour
Knead for another 2 minutes

Place the dough into a large bowl, cover with gladwrap and leave on your kitchen bench overnight.  (I sprayed my bowl with olive oil spray to ensure the dough didn’t stick).

The next morning the dough should have risen nicely. Tip the dough onto a surface that has been sprinkled with flour and semolina.  Shape into a ball, or oval or whatever shape you’re going for.

Place the shaped dough into a floured banneton or onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and leave it for a couple of hours, until it has risen again.

Preheat the oven to 240 degrees.

If the dough is in a banneton, tip it out onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.
Spray the top of the dough with water and slash the top with a knife.

Place it into the oven.  Put a small tray of water in the bottom of the oven, to help generate steam.

Reduce the temperature to 220 degrees and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. 

Reduce the temperature to 175 degrees, remove the tray of water from the oven and take the bread off of the baking tray and place the bread back into the oven, just on the oven rack (without the tray) and bake for a further 10 minutes.

Using Chookies method of checking if the bread is cooked - use a digital thermometer to ensure the internal temperature of the bread is more than 200 degrees Fahrenheit.


You can also cook the bread in a cast iron pot if you like (instead of on a baking tray):

Place a large cast iron pot (lid on) into the oven and preheat to 240 degrees.  Make sure that your cast iron pot (and any handles) can take that high temperature – some have plastic handles that can’t go into a really hot oven.

After the pot has been in the oven for 30 minutes, slash the top of the dough with a knife, then carefully using oven gloves pick up the dough using the baking paper and place it into the pot, put the lid on and place the pot back in the oven. Reduce the temperature to 220 degrees and bake for 20 minutes. 

Be careful the pot and lid will be very hot, don’t touch them without a thick oven glove or you will burn yourself

After the 20 minutes, take the lid off the pot and bake for another 20 minutes with the lid off.

Be careful the pot and lid will be very hot

Reduce the temperature to 175 degrees, take the dough out of the pot and place the bread back into the oven, just on the oven rack (no pot or tray etc) and bake for a further 10 minutes.

Check the bread is cooked using a digital thermometer (as above).

Be careful the pot and lid will still be very hot

[Katiej]

[Katiej]

[judydawn]

Thanks Katie, will try all this next time and hope that I can produce a copy of what you've made.

[achookwoman]

Katie, thanks, this is so comprehensive.  Love the look of your SD.
I think fiddling with SD is a great creative pass time.   Should be recommended for stress relief.
Go Katie.

[spersephone]

It looks wonderful. When/how do you keep the starter going for the next batch?

[cookie1]

Katie I've never done an overnight prove. I will have to give it a try.

Spersephone keep some of your starter for the next load. A couple of tablespoons is enough. Feed it and then pop it into the fridge. When you want to bake again, take it out and feed it up.

[spersephone]

I do another overnight bread that I'm really happy with, but haven't done sourdough yet.

[Cornish Cream]

I will try your method next time I make SD Katie.Thank you for taking the time to share your method with us all
Your loaves look wonderful.

[cookie1]

Katie do you knock this dough down after the overnight rise please?  Thanks.

[Katiej]

No Cookie, I didn't really knock it down.
I tipped it out of the bowl and shaped it, I lost some of the volume but I didn't knock it completely down.

[cookie1]

Thanks Katie. I did and it is taking forever to rise. I'll give it a few more hours and then bake it. I've got a heap of starter left so will make another lot. I'm sure the only thing will be that the flavour intensifies. It smelled lovely this morning.

[spersephone]

I make an overnight bread, but it's not sourdough. Very yummy.