My First Attempt at Baking Sour Dough Bread

Sour Dough Bread (100% AP flour & Knead)

After making my sour dough starter, I attempted to bake Sour Dough Boule.

Recipe from Patrick Ryan. I halve the recipe and used AP flour instead of bread flour.

Sour dough bread according to baker’s percentage

Preferment flour (starter)           17%

Hydration                                         65%

Salt                                                     1%

Timeline

Day 1

11.45am Feed sour dough starter

8.30pm Mix & Knead

Day 2

9.15pm Bulk fermentation (1^st  rise)

1.15am Shape

1.30am Proof(2^nd rise) in fridge

10.30am  Preheat oven

11.00am Score & Bake

11.40am Cool

Taste?

It tasted fine, like sour dough bread.

But there were not enough ‘holes’ in my sourdough bread. There were more holes in my no knead baguette and both were using AP flour. So was it the fermentation process? Kneading?

Troubleshooting

I spoke to my friend who had shown me using this exact recipe (without using a fridge to prove it overnight) more than 2 years ago.

I spent a day with her to learn sour dough bread. She baked 2 boule- 1 shaped with a bannetton basket and another with a pyrex.

She previously had similar experience with the ‘holes’. It’s insufficient kneading… Knead until its soft like a baby’s bottom.

Or I could opt for a stand mixer with a dough hook to let it do the job for me.

Or should I try a no knead sour dough recipe?

Yay?

On a positive note, my sour dough starter is a success after trying two rounds.

Cost of ingredients

Piglet asked me what’s the ingredient cost of the dough. Its 1.1kg of AP flour.

 400g of AP flour for the sour dough bread

700g of AP flour for the sour dough starter (7 days)

Practice makes perfect

Hmmm…. Need practice more and bake more (and eat more bread). Will need to buy bread flour next.