Butter Garlic Sourdough Bread

[Blah blah blah, insert story here]

I'm still experimenting with timing and hydration amounts but this is basically what I did.

Notes

• To make a "normal" sourdough, just skip the garlic butter.
• As with all sourdough "recipes", you may need to experiment and make adjustments to account for your ambient temperature, water temperature, air humidity, flour type, etc.
• I only had bleached all purpose flour so I added wheat gluten to increase the protein content to approximate bread flour.
• The amount of garlic was barely enough to impart a flavor, but it may have been overpowered by the extra tangy bread. I was eating the bread cold, so maybe heating/toasting it might have made it more fragrant. I might also double the amount of garlic next time.
• You can shift the actual start time to coincide with your largest chunk of free time. eg - Prepare dough/starter at 8am, and do the stretch/fold/bake when you get home from work.
• 500-600 grams of flour makes about 2 big loaves
• If you don't have a dutch oven, GET ONE.
  • A dutch oven is crucial for steaming the bread during the first part of the bake. You could use any other oven-safe lidded pot, but the heavy cast iron lid helps reduce the amount of steam that escapes.
  • Some tutorials suggest placing a pan of water or ice in the oven for the first half of the bake. This won't work because most modern ovens are vented.
  • Other options for getting steam

Ingredients

Listed using baker's percentages (weights listed in grams)

• Flour 100% + Gluten 16% = new 100% (500g + 80g)
• Water 68% (395g)
• Active Sourdough Starter 35% (200g)
  • decrease this amount if you are in a warm location
• Salt 2% (11g)
• Butter: 2% (11g)
• Garlic: half a head? (I didn't weigh this)

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Ready set go

10pm:

• Mix together flour & water until you have a shaggy mess of dough that is more or less even (ie - all the dry flour is mixed in).
• Cover the dough with clear cling wrap, or place in a sealed container to autolyse overnight.
  • "Room temperature".
  • If you live in a warm area, you could start earlier (eg 7-8pm) and place the dough in the refrigerator.
  • If your "room" is cold (~<18 C) you could put your dough in the oven and leave the light on. This usually generates enough heat to keep the oven warm
• Prepare the sourdough starter.
  • Use a ratio of 1:2:2 or 1:3:3 (starter:flour:water) to achieve the appropriate weight needed for the recipe.
  • Place in a warm dark place to allow it to rise/grow overnight.

8 am (ie when you wake up)

• Add starter to the dough.
  • Use the stretch & fold technique in order not to break the gluten strands that you so carefully generated overnight. (I usually do these stretch & folds directly in the bowl.)
• Cover and rest the dough for 30 min at "room temperature".

30 min later

• Add salt (could consider waiting until the next Stretch & fold to do this)
• Stretch & fold
• Cover and rest the dough for 30 min at "room temperature".

30 min later

• Stretch & fold
• Cover and rest the dough for 30 min at "room temperature".
• Prep Garlic:
  • Cut up several cloves of garlic (I used about 1/2 a head of garlic for 2 loaves)
  • You can mince, slice, rough chop, or smash - it's up to you as to how you like it.
  • Melt 1-1.5 tablespoons of butter in a pan
  • Sautee the garlic until you get a nice strong aroma, before it starts to brown.
  • Set this aside for later (or you can time this to coincide with the fold-in).

30 min later

• Stretch & fold to add burlick aka gartter aka garlic butter mix
  • (I may have done one more S&F before adding the garlic butter)
  • The butter will make the folds more difficult, so just take your time and allow the dough to absorb the oil and adhere to itself.
• Fold the dough until all the oil has been incorporated.
• Cover and rest the dough for 30 min at "room temperature".

30 min later

• Stretch & fold
• Cover and rest the dough for 2-3 hours (to bulk rise) at "room temperature".
  • If you have a bread proofer, or if your oven has a proofing setting, you could cut this down to 1-2 hours.
  • The range depends on how tangy you want your bread. Longer fermentation time results in a more "sour" flavor, but over-fermenting could tire out the yeast too early which can result in poor oven rise.

12-2 pm (ie after bulk rise)

• Lightly dust your counter ("bench") with flour and carefully dump out the dough.
• If making more than one loaf, divide your dough as needed.
• Preshape the dough
• "Bench rest" 30 min
• If the dough is still flattening out after the rest period, repeat preshape as needed

30 min later

• Use a banneton (bread proofing basket) if you have it.
  • If you don't that fancy gadget, take a small bowl and line it with a cloth. Knit cloth (like a cut out piece of old T-shirt) tends to work better than a dish towel.
• Dust your (makeshift) proofing basket with some rice flour.
  • Rice flour contains no gluten so it serves as a non-stick barrier between the dough and your container.
• Shape your dough one final time ("final shaping").
• Lightly dust the top of your loaf with rice flour and place into the proofing basket, top side down.
• Cover and proof (rest) for 2-3 hours.
  • Again, longer fermentation time results in a more "sour" flavor, but over-fermenting could tire out the yeast too early which can result in poor oven rise.

(One hour before baking)

• Place a dutch oven inside your oven and preheat to 500F

(Baking time!)

• Place your loaf on a piece of baking parchment paper (optional)
• Dust the top of the loaf with rice flour.
• Score the loaf in some way.
  • Scoring the surface allows for a controlled rise.
  • If you don't score your loaf the bread will "rise" through weak spots in the crust so you might end up with a weird explode-y looking result.
• Place your loaf in the dutch oven and cover.
  • I prefer to use the dutch oven upside-down so that the loaf goes into the "top" part and gets covered with the "pot" part.
  • I found that placing the loaf into the pot side resulted in a burned bottom due to more heat transfer from the more massive piece of cast iron.
• Lower the oven temp to 450F
• Bake for 20 minutes

20 min later (Browning the crust)

• Remove the dutch oven cover and continue baking uncovered for 20-30 min

(Done!)

Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack.
Allow it to cool to room temp before cutting into it.