Stan's Polish kitchen - Home made Sourdough bread

Stan's home made Sourdough bread

My attempt at home made Sourdough bread care of Paul Hollywood and the BBC good food guide!!

Because of the current lock-down situation its difficult to get fresh bread on a regular basis, well actually you can but I prefer to stay home and home bake, which is superior to anything from a supermarket.

In the UK Sourdough is regarded as some fancy Artisan thing but the rest of the world, not least Poland its always been the standard bread you could buy.

When made properly its actually a lot of effort and you have to want to spend the time and have the love to do it.

Since I am stuck in the house I decided to get back into baking again.

I am no expert but if you never try you will never know.

This is also good for Pizza bases.

Be under no illusion the sourdough bread you buy from supermarkets has sourdough in it but its not proper sourdough, you really do need visit a proper Artisan baker for the real thing.

The biggest issue I had was getting hold of Strong Bread Flour? The best is Canadian Flour available from many outlets or called Krupczatka in Poland. Eventually I tracked down a commercial wholesale supplier who would supply a bag (it is 16Kg though!) Its dated for 12 months and something tells me I will be baking a lot so no great issue, other than buying a lot of Kilner jars to store it in, but anyway............

I have split this into 2 sections.

Make the Sourdough starter then bread with that starter.

You do not use normal yeast or self rising flour for this but natural bacteria that is in the air or in this case grapes.

How to make the sourdough starter. (Paul Hollywood BBC recipe)

Ingredients:

6 White grapes washed

250g Strong white flour

250ml Tepid water

Method:

Slice the grapes into a mixing bowl, with the flour and water.

Mix them with a spoon until well combined.

Pour into an airtight container (I use a plastic lock down container) leave somewhere warm, like near a radiator for about 3 days.

The contents should start to bubble and rise doubling in size.

You should discard half and add 100g of strong white flour and 100ml of tepid water to feed it mixing well, after 24 hours its ready to be added to the bread mix.

I am someone who hates waste, I removed half of it to another container so I had 2 lots of starter to use, the other one fed also but placed in a fridge to slow down until it was needed.

For some reason when I tried that both sets of starter seemed to die off?

After some experimentation I decided to just feed it with 3 heaped tablespoons of flour and some water every day regardless, this worked and nothing died off in fact it fizzed like a sherbot lemon.

So now I have 2 starters one to use and 1 for the next batch.

You can now have an indefinite starter for all your baking needs.

How to make the Sourdough bread. (Paul Hollywood BBC recipe)

Ingredients:

375g Strong white flour + extra for dusting

250g Sourdough starter

150ml Tepid water

7.5g Salt (personally I prefer less as the bread is sour enough)

Olive oil

Method:

Combine the flour, starter and salt into a mixing bowl adding the water a little at a time. Use your hands to mix until the dough is soft.

Coat a chopping board with some olive oil, tipping the dough onto it.

Knead the dough for about 15 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. A good way for some exercise.

Tip the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover with cling film. Leave it to rise and double in size, keeping it somewhere warm for about 5 hours.

Now you can knead it in the bowl or a chopping board again, knocking all the air out. Keep kneading it until its nice and smooth like playtime with Bluetack! Roll it into a ball and dust with some flour.

I needed to knead it for longer a bit rusty on my technique.

Tip it into a well floured banneton or proving basket (freely available on ebay) allowing it to rise for 4-8 hours (yes 8 hours I did mention you should do this for love.)

Put a tray or Pyrex dish filled with water on the bottom shelf of a pre-heated oven 220c/Gas 7. Don't be tempted to keep checking it as the steam and heat escape.

In my case the oven is on its last legs, it either burns or doesn't cook properly, hence I had to keep rotating the bread and topped up the water. It would have risen more if I didn't have to do that.

Gently tip the risen dough onto a lined baking tray (or in my case a flour dusted pizza tray) bake the loaf for 30 minutes at 220c then reduce the heat to 200c and bake for a further 15-20 mins. Remove and cool on a cooling rack.

That's it, you should have a great tasting bread that is good for you too, no artificial stuff in here!

Use this basic recipe and change the mix of flour? Add wholemeal flour or anything else - experiment.

Some plain flours taste nice but are too weak, combine with the strong bread flour to create the pockets of air and the other flour provides the taste and texture.

Sourdough you can freeze and it toasts really well.

If its getting a bit dry pop it in the oven for 10 mins and it will come back to life.

Good luck with your baking.

Ideally you want to double or treble the ingredients and make more loaves at once, freezing the others for later.

Smacznego (Bon appetite)