Well Bread!: Using up my Sourdough Starter, Get a Proving Oven for Nothing.

I realised that I haven't said anything about my sourdough starter for a while, they are both well, and being refreshed every week. They live in the fridge quite happily between times, a weekly feed seems to suit them.

Of course there is the question of what to do with the ever increasing amount of spare starter you have every week.

I use this to make a loaf, in the following way. Its not quite a purists sourdough, but fits in with my sunday cooking routine, as the oven is on for roast of whatever meal we are having.

So I take 200g of each starter, this means of the 400g there is 200g flour and 200g water.
For a loaf at 70% hydration I need 500g flour and 350g water.Excuse the maths here, but it's easy really.

As I have 200g flour in the starters, I need a further 300g of flour, and a further 150g water.
To this I add 10g salt and 5g of instant yeast, just to help out. As I said its not purist sourdough, but I only have a few hours. I could start it on saturday night, and leave it to prove over night, but bread is usually the last thing on my mind on saturday night!

Anyway give it all a mix and form it into a ball. Cover it for 30 minutes, then stretch and fold. Form it back into a ball.

I then put it in a proving oven for about an hour and a half.

Incidentally, everyone has a proving oven, whether they realise it or not, and you certainly don't need to spend a fortune on one. I know that you can buy cookers with proving drawers, but you don't even need that.

I can't claim credit for this, but I can tell you that it works, and is very simple.

All you have to do is take a roasting pan and put about half an inch of boiling water in it. Place the pan in the oven, on the base and put your dough above it. Move the shelves to allow for rise, (I didn't allow enough room first time, I won't do that again) it can be spectacular. Next turn the oven to max for 1 MINUTE ONLY. This is important, turn it off again after 60 secs. Now leave it for an hour and a half. This is the result.

Turn it out onto a floured surface and knock it back. Shape it into a sausage, getting a good tension on the surface, then put it into a loaf tin,

cover it with a cloth. Turn on the oven to max.

After about 30 minutes, it should look something like this,

Slash and bake, about 40-45minutes, and this is what you get.

The thing sticking out on the right is my trusty temperature probe. I use it all the time to make sure that the breads are cooked, I learnt on the course at Manna from Devon that a temp of 95C means that the gluten has set, and thus the bread is cooked. I wouldn't be without it now, saves eating a lot of half cooked dough.