I love using this 36 hour method to make bread. It takes a little planning but once you figure that part out it’s pretty easy. I have yet to have a bad result from this method unless you count the baguettes that got stuck to my peel and fell into my oven, but we won’t go there!
I actually baked this bread on Monday but since this week has been a blur due to me starting a new job on Monday and adopting a new apprentice on Sunday I’ve had my hands full!
Our new family member Lexi is around 4 months old and is a black Lab mix. She’s keeping Max busy, that’s for sure!
I love caramelized onions and wanted to use them in this bake along with some fresh milled hard winter white whole wheat, spelt and rye along with some KAF French style flour. Other than the different flours this one was pretty straight forward formula and the end results were perfect. The crumb is nice and open and the onion flavor was to die for. I mixed the onions in with the dough when adding the starter and salt and it had plenty of time to permeate the dough.
On another note, I signed up to be a test subject for BreadStorm for the IPAD and the formulas below are screen shots from my first attempt. I have to still learn how to use this program, but for the first try it seems great and worth a look if you like to turn your recipes into formulas. (Update: I switched out the original formulas for the corrected versions with the flour and water from the seed starter included).
Give this one a try and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
Directions
Starter Build 1
Mix ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly combined. Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for around 8 hours. The starter should almost double when ready to proceed.
Starter Build 2
Add to Build 1 Starter:
85 grams French Style Flour
52 grams Winter Hard White Whole Wheat
100 grams Water at Room Temperature (80-90 degrees F.)
Mix ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly combined. Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for around 4 – 6 hours. The starter should almost double when ready to proceed.
Main Dough Procedure
Mix the flours and the ice water together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute. Put the dough in a slightly covered oiled bowl and put in the refrigerator for 12 hours.
The next day add your starter, caramelized onions and salt to the dough and mix by hand until it is thoroughly mixed and evenly distributed. Due to the high water content in the 100% hydration starter this dough is very easy to mix by hand and is very silky and smooth.
Bulk rise at room temperature for 2-3 hours until it grows around 1/3 in volume doing stretch and folds every half hour until it has developed the correct amount of strength.
Put the dough back into the refrigerator for around 20-24 hours. I took it out about 20 hours later.
When you take the dough out of the refrigerator you want it to have almost doubled in volume, but if it doest don’t worry as it will end up okay anyway. Let it rise at room temperature for around 2 hours or until the dough has doubled from the night before.
Next, divide the dough and shape as desired and place them in their respective basket(s).
Cover the dough with a moist towel and let sit at room temperature for 1.5 to 2 hours.
Score the loaves as desired and prepare your oven for baking with steam.
Set your oven for 550 degrees F. at least 45 minutes before ready to bake. When ready to bake place the loaves into your oven on your oven-stone with steam and let it bake for 10 minutes and then lower the temperature to 450 degrees. When the loaf is golden brown and reached an internal temperature of 210 degrees F. you can remove it from the oven.
Let the bread cool down for at least an 3 hours or so before eating as desired.
mookielovesbread 