Tom's Bread Recipe - Revisited and Not No-Knead

1 cup (9 oz) "fed" sourdough starter (i.e., fed the day before)

1 1/2 cups (12 oz) lukewarm water (I use whey from Katherine's cheese making. You can also use milk, eggs, beer, etc., but each choice will produce a very different bread.)

5-6 cups (21 - 26 oz) high gluten bread flour (e.g., King Arthur Sir Lancelot . You can also use up to 20% rye flour or 40% whole wheat bread flour - again with very different results.)

1 Tbsp salt

1 Tbsp sugar (I use 2 Tbsp dried malt extract - from a beer making supply house)

 

Mix the starter with the liquid and then add 3 cups (4.25 oz flour/cup) flour. Stir well. It should be a moist, gloppy mess. Let rise at room temperature for a couple of hours and then in a cooler location overnight. (55-60F is ideal, but it is not fussy.)

 

The next morning, stir in the salt, sugar, and 2 cups of flour. The consistency will vary depending on how wet the starter was. Is not to worry. When the dough has roughly come together, knead the dough by machine or by hand until it is silky (5-8 minutes by machine, up to 15 minutes by hand). The dough should be tacky but not sticky which you adjust by adding more flour as needed. Until you get the feel of it, err on the moist side.

 

Cut four strips of parchment paper about 24" x 8" and fold them in half the long way, to give you 4 24" x 4" strips.  Spray the inside of the bowl in which the bread is to rise (the bowl should be roughly the same diameter at the cast iron Dutch oven in which you will be baking the bread) with Baker's Joy (a flour and oil mixture).  Place two of the strips in the bowl at right angles to each other. Place the other two strips, also at right angles to each other at a 45 degree rotation to fill in the gaps between the first two strips. There must be enough overhang of the strips so that you can grasp all the strips later. Spray the interior with Baker's Joy. Form the dough into a round loaf and put into the middle of the prepared bowl. If your house is dry, spray the top of the dough with a light coating of baker's Joy.

 

Let the bread rise until more than doubled in bulk, usually 2-4 hours depending on the temperature. Meanwhile, preheat the Dutch oven in the over to at least 400F, 425F is better. When the oven is hot and the bread has risen, quickly remove the lid of the Dutch oven, grasp all the tails of the parchment paper strips and lower the dough into the Dutch oven, leaving the paper in place. Put the lid on the Dutch oven in such a way that the tails are hanging out. Bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for 12 - 15 minutes more to the desired degree of brownness.

 

Turn the bread out onto a cooling rack and remove the now darkened parchment paper.

 

Enjoy!

 

P.S. You can get Baker's Joy in any supermarket. If you want some sourdough starter, we'll give you some if you are close by, or ours originally came from King Arthur .