I was reading the post of a blog that I adore and my eyes stopped to a special recipe. It was a love at first sight. Whole wheat grains, flax seeds and sourdough were the main ingredients. It was clear to me in that moment what would have been the next recipe to try.
But because a success doesn't come just like that, here are some exciting experiences with this bread.
Like most of sourdough breads, this one asks for a preferment. Clear enough, but the resulting preferment it was a hard ball, ready to give it to my child to play with. I was used with a more liquid preferment or at least with a preferment with a dough consistency, so after seeing mine, I grabbed the tablet to check on the web if I had done something wrong. Not at all. The recipe was exactly like this, the pictures where showing exactly the same and comments were saying the same. So I've got a preferment that looked like a hard ball!
In the same time with the preferment, the recipe was asking to soak the flax seeds. Very well, I have put hot water over the seeds and then I have started looking strangely at the floating seeds in the bowl, asking myself if it is true that till morning the water would be completely absorbed. So, I have prepared the strange preferment and put the seeds in water and I went to sleep, a bit nervous, thinking that maybe in the morning I'll have to throw away both of them. And in the morning, surprise surprise ! My preferment was flat looking beautiful, with a spongy consistency as it was mentioned in the recipe. The seeds had been soaked well and they had even started to stick a bit one to another..Perfect, with all the stress gone, I have started to make my bread.
The result of mixing ingredients was a doted dough (because of the flax seeds of course) easy to work with, with a fresh smell and it was a real beauty as you would have liked to eat it unbaked.
For me, it was the first time when the dough was preserving its shape so well in bannetons and later, in the oven, it raised nicely without getting flat. In the same time, my heart was growing full as well of joy.
For those who are trying to use sourdough for the first time, I would recommend this recipe as it gives you a lot of satisfaction.
This bread I shared with some friends visiting me and it was well appreciated. As Codruta Popa, the author of the recipe mentioned, this is indeed a bread for friends.
Ingredients:
Preferment (450g):
- 290g whole wheat flour
- 20g white sourdough, 100% hydration
- 140g water
Soaker (soaked seeds) (355g)
- 100g Flaxseed
- 255g boiling water
Final dough (1673g)
- 600g whole wheat flour
- 250g water
- 18g salt
- 450g preferment
- 355g soaker
Directions:
- Place all ingredients for the preferment and mix until you get them well incorporated. You'll get something like a hard ball. Put the ball in a bowl and cover it with foil or a lid and leave it at room temperature over night for 12 hours.
- Also in the evening, put the flax seeds to soak, by pouring boiling water over them. Also, cover the bowl with foil or a lid.
- In the morning pour the soaker in water (250g) and add the flour (600g). I have used the mixer bowl to avoid getting too many dirty dishes.
- Let the mixture to rest for 1 hour (autolyse phase).
- Then add the preferment which has more the consistency of a sponge, along with salt and mix with an electric mixer for 10 minutes.
- Take out the dough and form a ball you let to ferment in the same bowl for 2h30". As usual, the first fermentation is done with two stretch and folds every 45".
- Take out the dough, and do several stretch and folds to get more strength.
- Shape the 2 breads, place them in floured bannetons and leave them to rise for 2 hours covered with a towel.
- Preheat oven 45 minutes before the end loaf leavening at 250ºC. Obviously, put the baking and the pan with stones in the oven to heat as well .
- Take a baking sheet, turn over the dough from bannetons on it and score the loafs with a blade.
- Slide the loaves on the hot baking stone from the oven and pour 200ml of hot water over hot stones from the pan. Reduce the temperature to 240ºC in the oven and let them bake for 40".
- Take out the breads and place them on a rack to cool.
The recipe was inspired from here.
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