I love this rich and filling wholegrain bread, it is truly one of my favorites. The honey and milk in this recipe, brings this enriched sourdough bread to the next level, giving it a sweet and nutty flavor. If you are a fan of no-knead, artisan bread recipes, this one is a must try.
A Few Tips to Build Strength in a Sourdough Bread Recipes
Building strength in your dough is key to an open crumb, prominent ear, and high oven spring. As well, these steps can greatly reduce frustration in the final shaping process. A strong dough tends to stick less when shaping.
Building strength in your dough is done in the early phase of the bulk fermentation and requires 1-2 minutes of your time at 30-45 minute intervals, over the course of 2-3 hours. There are several steps, and techniques that assist in building strength in your dough. Factors that determine how much strength you need to build, are hydration levels, and the type of flour you are working with.
When Do You Need To Build Extra Strength in Your Dough?
- Higher hydration doughs, especially if hydration is greater than 75%
- Whole grains and stone ground flours also require building more strength.
- White bread recipes with very high hydration, such as ciabattas.
Steps That Help Develop Dough Strength
Autolyse
This is performed at the very start of the mixing process. A true autolyse is when you combine only the flour and water to allow the water to fully be absorbed by the flour. This is done to help the gluten develop and assist in the extensibility of the gluten. Often bakers, may, mix the flour water and sourdough starter and refer to this rest phase as an autolyse as well, though it is not a true autolyse.
Rubaud Method
A method of hand mixing to combine first sourdough starter then salt into your dough. I’m this technique you are basically lifting a section of dough and slapping it against the bowl in succession over and over again, from anywhere from 5-10 minutes.
Lamination
The process of coating your work surface with COLD water, and stretching your dough out like a sheet, prior to folding, and rolling it back over on itself. This can be done one or more times either at the start or end of the series of coil folds.
Stretch & Fold
A technique where you stretch a section of dough upwards and fold it back to the center of the bowl. This is completed in a series of 4 rotations of the bowl, lifting around a 1/4 of the dough up on each turn.
Coil Fold
A coil fold is basically an Inverted stretch and fold that utilizes gravity a bit more effectively. It is best performed in a low flat dish like a square or rectangle casserole dish. First you begin by wetting your fingers with cold water, then freeing up along the sides of the dough and lifting the center up, to allow the top then the bottom of the dough to fold under. Rotate the bowl one turn, then repeat in the other direction. After the initial coil fold, I lightly oil the top of my dough with olive oil and cover with plastic wrap then a towel.
I hope this section adds a little clarity to some of the instructions.
The Ideal steps to Build Strength in This Sourdough Recipe is:
- Autolyse with sourdough starter (not a TRUE autolyse)
- Stretch and fold, salt added in stretch and fold. Perform 2 rounds here when adding salt.
- Lamination- after lamination you may transfer too square or rectangle Pyrex dish for coil folds, if you don’t have one, you may return the dough to the bowl and perform coil folds here. A flat bottom dish is just a little easier and more effective for doing the coil folds.
- 3-4 sets of coil folds, at 30 minute intervals. This is a relatively, low to moderate, hydration recipe, so this is more than enough steps to build adequate strength. If you feel confident, and have experience baking sourdough, you can experiment with bringing the hydration of this bread up to 80% hydration (160 g water and 160 g milk), just add 2 additional coil folds.
Remember, this is not a hard and fast schedule for building dough strength. At times I have added or omitted a step, if I got caught up doing something, or had to step away from my dough. Every time my bread turned out just fine. This is just the suggested series of steps to help build a strong dough. Strong dough equals open crumb, nice ear, and excellent oven spring.
Do You Have a Sourdough Starter?
Like all the breads featured on Bubbling Starter, it is made with a sourdough starter. To learn how to make your own; check out Beginners Guide to Creating a Bubbling Starter, or you can purchase a sourdough starter here.
The Best Milk, Honey & Oat Sourdough Bread
A rich wholegrain bread. The honey and milk brings this enriched sourdough bread to the next level, giving it a sweet and nutty flavor. If you are a fan of no-knead, artisan bread recipes this one is a must try.
12
servings40
minutesIngredients
100 g. starter
130 g. water
150 g. milk
80 g. honey
400 g. flour (200g white bread flour 150 grams red wheat flour, 50 grams’ einkorn flour)
60 g. steel cut oats (I use instant, if using regular steel cut oats, pre-soak in hot water for 30 minutes and add during the lamination)
8 g. salt (added after Autolyse)
Directions
- Measure flour, and oats (I use instant steel cut oats), into a bowl or plastic container, if you are pressed for time add salt here as well. But, if you are able to complete an autolyse and a few stretch and folds save the salt for later.
- Measure active starter into a very large glass bowl, add room temperature water, milk, and honey, stir to combine.
- Slowly pour in flour mixing with a dough whisk or if you don’t have one a fork will do. Mix until well combined the dough will be fairly wet and a little lumpy. This will smooth out and strengthen with a few stretch and folds.
- If you have time and are after amazing, I highly recommend a 30-45 minute autolyse, followed by a stretch and fold to adding the salt here, then a lamination, and 3-4 coil folds.
- BULK FEREMENTATION- 6-12-hour bulk ferment, you can play with length of bulk rise and fridge final proof. during the bulk rise you want your dough to almost double in volume. it is important not to over-proof you dough.
- SHAPING- Place dough on lightly floured surface, be sure not to over flour as the dough needs tension to hold its shape. Loosely shape ball and let it rest for 30 minutes. Final shaping, when shaping gently pull ends to form a rectangle. Fold top, bottom, then ends, flip over. Next slowly work in circular motions with your bench scraper and base of your hand, rotating the ball of dough. Once enough tension is built lightly flour, sprinkle rice flour on proofing basket or towel lined bowl. Proof over night in fridge for overnight cold proof.
- BAKING- The next morning preheat oven with Dutch oven inside to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove dough from fridge, flip onto parchment paper by placing parchment over bowl or basket, place your palm on top of the parchment flip the bowl, slowly place parchment boule or batard, and bowl on counter lift basket. Now score the bread using your bread lame or very sharp knife you want to slice at least 1/2” deep. Remove Dutch oven, be careful, it will be very hot. Using parchment as handles lift boule into Dutch oven, smooth folds in paper, place in over, reduce temperature to 450, and bake for 20 minutes covered. Remove from oven, place cookie sheet under Dutch oven, remove lid and drop temperature to 425 and continue to bake for 20-30 minutes. You will know it is done when digital thermometer reads 205-210 degrees F, when inserted.
- Place on cooling rack for about one hour, slice, and enjoy.
Notes
- TIP: If your pressed for time you can throw the salt in with the flour in the initial mix. However, if you want the extra height to your bread, and a nice ear to your crust, it is worth letting your dough autolyse for 45 minutes, adding the salt in on your first stretch and fold.
- This bread is roughly a 70% hydration recipe, ideal for beginners. If you are an experienced sourdough baker, feel free to bring the hydration of this recipe up to 80%, a total of 320 g liquid between the milk and water. Though the honey does have some water content, I am not including it in the hydration percentages.
- Feel free to experiment with different flours as well. As long as you stick to a ratio of 50% strong bread flour, the remaining 50% can really be any combination. For optimal rise and handling I suggest 25% and up of either red wheat, or whole wheat, and 25% or less of spelt, einkorn, rye, or red fife.
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