Naturally Leavened Sourdough Boule . 天然酸種圓包

Naturally Leavened Sourdough Boule . 天然酸種圓包

 I haven’t baked artisan breads for quite a while as life was busy in the past few months, no time to spend on feeding the leaven, but the bottles of leaven are still staying good inside my fridge. When I was about to wake the leaven up and feed them, one of my friends surprised me by giving me a bottle of the mature starter which she had developed from whole wheat flour, rye bread flour and water, and it has been fed for two weeks.  I am so blessed having such a considerate friend.

After bringing the starter home, I kept it in the fridge for a night as it’s late that night, I then fed the starter twice to make it more active before I used it for bread, at the same time, I fed my own starters as well, so now I have many bottles of starters in the fridge.  I used the starter from the second feeding to make dough with autolyse and made another dough from my own starter using the normal way.  Having kept both of them at room temperature for 2 hours and did four times of what we called “stretch of fold”, I kept both of dough in the fridge for bulk fermentation.  

Yesterday morning, after retarding the dough for 60 hours in the fridge, I took one of the dough out and left it on the kitchen counter to let it return to the room temperature and then taught my other helper on how to shape a boule, and then let her do the shaping and sprinkled rice flour into the banneton I usually used for artisan bread. Once my helper gets used to shape, I will teach her how to score breads, so it is all step by step. When she could manage to do it all, she will be the one to take care of my homemade breads and starters when I am busy, it really does not sound bad, right?

The dough I made was using starter of 100% hydration, it turns out pretty good, and dark brown as expected….I could not help cutting it open even before it was completely cool, and had a big bite. It is so yummy.

French baguette will be coming in a day or two from the other dough....let's see.

過去幾個月很忙，忙得沒時間餵養酸種，也就沒用酸種造包。麵包當然造，但主要改用了鮮酵，風味其實也很不錯，只是心仍惦記著在冰箱裡冬眠著的酸種，正想找個時候把酸種叫醒。 一位朋友很有心思地從澳門給我帶來她用十四天時間養至成熟的酸種，這教我非常喜出望外，也很高興我幸運地交上這個朋友，她的慷慨分享使我覺得很窩心。

那天晚飯後帶著酸種回家， 因時間太晚，我只隨手把它放在冰箱內保存，第二天才把淺睡的酸種急急喚醒； 連續餵養了兩次，也順帶教曉我另一位家傭如何養酸種，以便日後可交酸種給她照顧了。接著下來，是用酸種去發酵麵糰。我那天總共做了兩個麵糰，其一再加入水合法。兩個麵糰都在室溫待了兩小時，我也為它們做了四次“拉摺”運動，之後才把它們放在冰箱裡，初發58小時。今早，把一個麵糰取出回溫，準備造個大圓包。一邊對摺鬆弛麵糰，一邊向家傭示範如何造型。然後讓她為我的圓形發酵籃灑海粘米粉，再讓它實習為包造型。 家傭很用心學，應該假以時日，她可以為代我餵養酸種和造酸種包了。這主意其實也不錯呢！

我那百份百含水量的酸種圓包出國爐了，我刻意讓它烤得深色一點，成品更好看呢！皮脆包軟，未及涼透，已急著把包切開，吃了一大塊…. 太好味！

另一個麵糰我明天會用來造法包，大家等著看成品吧！

Ingredients:

Plain white levain 25% (100% Hydration)

Water 66%

Salt 2%

Unbleached Strong White Flour 100%

材料：

酸種 25% (100% 含水量)

水  66%

鹽 2%

高筋粉 100%