Those who follow me on Twitter will know I’ve been making more bread lately: slow ferment and sourdough recipes. I’ve tried a few Leaven recipes, including Dan Lepard’s Rye starter.
I had mixed results with Dan Lepard’s recipe and wasn’t too impressed with my first efforts, which were rather flat, although very tasty (lovely sourdough taste and smell). I decided to try Richard Bertinet’s Spelt, White Flour and Honey ferment starter recipe from his wonderful book Crust and so far so good. I’m currently on day 4 so not much longer to go before I make my first loaf with this new leaven. If you’re interested in making your own bread, I can’t recommend Richard Bertinet’s books highly enough. He has written two (each includes a DVD):
Richard also has a cookery school in Bath where he teaches bread making. I’d love to do his 5-day bread making course.
In the video below, Richard demonstrates his Sweet Dough technique:
Use the following link to view Richard’s Sweet Dough recipe: http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/2000s/2008/03/sweetdough
Tags: Baking
I like Crust, but his timings for sourdough seem way off, and flying saucers in the photo are massively overproved for my money. I tend to err on the side of underproving and then slash deeply – works for me.
Hi Piers
Thank you for reading and your comment. I have to say, so far I haven’t had any issues with timings, but I’ll certainly watch out for them. I’ll also give your tip a try. How long do you prove for? Bertinet says 18-20 hours in proving baskets, which is what I’ve been doing.
I’ve found it has taken a while to get his technique right as the dough is so wet! However, the results have been good.
Do you have recommendations on recipes and books?
Tim
A total of maybe 6 hours. 3 hours bulk fermentation in a covered basin (plastic bag keeps the humidity in) doing a three fold turn every hour or so (which does _wonders_ for the texture), then shape into a tight ball and into the proving baskets for another two to three hours. When you press it with your thumb, the dough should come back slowly – if the dent doesn’t come out, it’s overproved, get it in the oven quickly and don’t slash it too deeply.
If you haven’t already got it, Dan Lepard’s The Handmade Loaf is brilliant – his basic sourdough process is almost embarrassingly easy and there’s some really great variations covered as well.
Hi Piers
Thanks for the advice. I will certainly give that a try and post how I get on. I ordered Dan Lepard’s ‘The Handmade Loaf’ from Amazon earlier in the week by coincidence. I have his book ‘Baking with Passion’, but have yet to try any of the recipes. I certainly plan to do so.
Tim