Silesian sourdough

Every now and then we try to bake something different to an everyday bread. This one attracted me because of obvious links to Silesia region of Poland. I don’t even know if it is a proper recipe, but the bread is very tasty.

Co jakiś czas staramy się upiec coś innego niż rzeczy, które piekliśmy dotychczas. Ten przepis mnie skusił oczywistym powiązaniem ze Śląskiem. Nie wiem nawet, czy to jest poprawny przepis, ale chleb jest bardzo smaczny.

If you have your sourdough running, this opens a completely new chapter in your baking. You can use it as it is in breads like the simple rye one, or use it as a base for levain of all forms, for other types of bread. You simply take a little bit and mix it with whatever is needed. In Silesian sourdough, you mix it with strong white wheat flour and leave it for the night (about 12 hours in my case). You will get a nice and bubbly levain, which becomes a base for further work.

What I like about this bread is that I can shape it by hand and rise it in a banneton, then give it a couple scores before baking and simply control in the oven so than it doesn’t burn the crust – it occupies the whole oven, so I need to shuffle the loaves for a nice and even bake.

I have unsettled matters with this recipe. I used it for Helenka’s birthday and got a beautiful outside, but the crumb collapsed and it was inedible. I had to do it right this time.

Silesian sourdough

The recipe comes from the Shipton Mill website.

Planning

You need to make the levain in advance, then spend about two hours doing something with the dough, then give it one-two hours to double in size, then shape it, then leave it to rise a bit, then bake in the oven for 40 minutes. Then let it cool, of course.

You’ll need a bowl for storing the dough. Oil it so that the dough does not stick too much. You’ll also need a banneton, or a bowl with a clean tea towel.

Ingredients

These are amounts for a single 1 kg loaf or two smaller. I usually bake two 1 kg or a one 2 kg loaf. I have a banneton to fit it all inside, it always comes out very impressive.

Levain

• 75 g strong white wheat flour
• 75 g water
• 50 g rye sourdough

Dough

• 200 g levain
• 350 g strong white wheat flour
• 150 g light rye flour
• 250 g water
• 10 g salt
• 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds (not essential, but recommended)

Preparation

1. Mix levain in the evening. Leave it for 8-12 hours.
   If you are using a wholemeal rye flour based sourdough for the mix, it will not be perfectly smooth and you will notice a lot of bran in it. If you want to avoid it (I most definitely don’t), prepare a preliminary starter with similar proportions about 12 hours earlier and use it as the sourdough in levain preparation

2. Mix all the ingredients together. I’ve used minimum speed of my mixer and a dough hook for about 5 minutes. Leave it for 10 minutes

3. Knead for 10-20 seconds, then leave for 30 minutes. Set a timer – you’ll reuse it more than once

4. Knead for 10-20 seconds, then leave for 30 minutes

5. Stretch and fold, then leave for 30 minutes. Stretch and fold is what it says it is – grab side of the dough, pull, fold over the rest of the dough, press gently in, rotate by 90 degrees, repeat (4-8 times). The dough will resist more with each fold. When it’s too hard, just stop

6. Stretch and fold, then leave until it doubles in size (about two hours in my case)

7. Shape a loaf. If you want a round one, place the surface from the bowl on a dusted worktop and make sure it doesn’t stick to the surface. Grab a side of the dough and fold it into the middle, press it in. Be careful to not make air sockets so that you don’t end with big holes in the loaf. Rotate by 30-40 degrees and repeat. Do it until you have a more or less round shape. Next, grab by the sides with both hands and flip it over. Grab by the sides with both hands and and make a rotating motion with a bit of a friction of the dough on the surface to close the shape. Then place it in a basket/bowl for rising seam side up. You can hide it in a plastic bag to give it a warmer environment and prevent the surface from drying out too quickly.

   Loaves in bannetons

   I used bannetons dusted with rye flour (do not dust with wheat flour, as it will easily get incorporated by the dough and the loaf will stick to the basket). You can use a bowl and a dusted linen or tea towel. You can also simply use a baking tin

8. How much should you wait? Hard to say. I waited till the dough started sticking out of the basket. It took about 40 minutes for the loaf to rise. In the meantime, we set your oven to 220 C without a fan about 20 minutes before baking, preferably with a top and bottom heating elements. As usual, know your oven.
   at the bottom of the oven place a roasting tray that will hold some water

9. When the oven is ready and so is the loaf, pour some water into the tray. Pop your bread on whatever you want to bake it on, then using a sharp knife score it, so that it can expand in a controlled way. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work out the first time. I’ve done a few of these and it still doesn’t always work

   

   Silesian sourdough with cracks outside the scoring

10. Pop the loaf into the oven for forty minutes. Observe it. It’s better that you put a baking tray above your loaf so that it doesn’t form a crust too quickly. Kitchen foil will work as well, as long as you don’t put it on the loaf

11. When 40 minutes pass, take it out. It should give a hollow sound when knocking on the bottom

    

    Silesian sourdough

That’s about it. The bread rose nicely, is quite soft and has a pleasant caraway aroma. The original recipe has more caraway in it, but when I followed it for the first time, the whole house smelled with caraway. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very enjoyable smell, but was quite overwhelming.

Silesian sourdough crumb

Silesian sourdough sandwich with ham, cucumber and chili

If you are about to order your bannetons right now, or are starting using them, remember to get a proper brush to clean them from the flour. Also, after baking, put them into the oven to let them dry a bit. A dry clean banneton is a happy banneton.

Cleaning the banneton