Rouge De Bordeaux Sourdough Breads Recipes

WHOLE GRAIN SOURDOUGH BAGELS

Steps:

• Early Morning Day 1: Starter Prep
• Feed 40g sourdough starter with 80g whole grain flour and 80g water. Let it ripen in a warm spot until at least doubled. This should take 4-6 hours. If you don't have a warm spot, do a 70:70:70 feed; and if you prefer to prep the starter the night before, use cool water and a higher feeding ratio, for example 20:90:90.
• Midday Day 1: Mixing and Fermenting
• Combine all the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook. Mix for about 5 minutes at low speed. The dough should be stiffer than pizza dough but not as dry as pasta dough. If you don't have a stand mixer, after combining the ingredients, knead the dough by hand for about 5 minutes.
• Lightly oil your bowl or bucket, place the dough inside, cover and let it rise until it has expanded by 75-100% (see the photo below). My dough took 5 hours in a warm lit-oven, but at cooler kitchen temps, your dough may need 8-10 hours. In the case of a cold environment, prepping the starter the night before and mixing in the morning may work best.
• Evening Day 1: Shaping (see the video above)
• Prep a large baking sheet with parchment paper and a dusting of flour.
• Scrape your dough out of its bowl or bucket onto a lightly oiled work surface. Fold the dough into a thick tube and roll it to about 24 inches in length.
• Cut the dough tube into 12 pieces.
• Roll each piece into a ball, and then roll all the balls into tubes, de-gassing the dough as much as possible.
• Wrap each tube around your palm and roll the seams on your work surface to seal and even out the bagel diameter.
• Lay the bagels on your baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap.
• Day 1 into Day 2 Overnight: Final Proof
• Unlike yeast-leavened dough, some room temperature proofing is needed before refrigerating the this sourdough bagel dough. Let the shaped bagels rise at room temperature for about 1 hour and then refrigerate the baking sheet overnight. In a warm kitchen, 40 minutes at room temperature before retarding might be sufficient. If you prefer to boil and bake the bagels on Day 1, plan for a room temperature final proof of 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
• Day 2: Stove and Oven Prep
• Preheat your oven to 500F with a baking stone or steel on the middle shelf for at least 30 minutes.
• Set 3 to 4 quarts of water to boil in a large pot.
• Soak your bagel boards for at least 10 minutes by laying them inside a rimmed baking sheet and filling it with water.
• Prepare dishes with seeds or any other bagel toppings you'd like to use.
• When the water is boiling and the preheat is complete, add the barley malt syrup to the water and stir.
• Remove the bagel dough from the refrigerator and remove the bagel boards from the water. Place the boards near your topping dishes, burlap-side up.
• Place a bowl of ice water near your toppings to quickly dunk the bagels in between the boiling and the topping. You can skip this step if your hands are relatively impervious to high temperatures and you adequately drain water off each bagel.
• Day 2: Boiling and Baking
• Transfer three bagels to the boiling water and boil for 1 minute on each side, using your bagel scoop to flip them.
• Remove the bagels from the boiling water and place them in the ice water.
• Lay a drained bagel on the topping of your choice, and then carefully transfer it to a bagel board, topping side down.
• Repeat this until you have six prepped bagels divided between two bagel boards.
• Load the bagel boards into your oven and bake for 4 minutes.
• Carefully turn the bagels over by lifting and flipping the boards so the bagels are now topping side up and baking directly onto the hot stone.
• Continue baking for 14 minutes more.
• Re-soak the boards and begin boiling and topping the next six bagels during this time so that when you remove the first batch from the oven, the next batch is ready to load.
• Cooling and Storage
• Let the bagels cool on a rack about 30 minutes before serving.
• The bagels can be stored in beeswax, paper, or plastic bags.
• After a couple of days, it's best to freeze the bagels. I like to pre-cut them in half and defrost directly in the toaster.

BORDEAUX RUSTIC BREAD (PAIN RUSTIQUE BORDELAIS)

Steps:

• You will need 2 jelly roll pans, dusted with cornmeal.
• The starter: in a bowl, whisk the yeast into the water and then stir in the flour; cover with plastic wrap and allow to ferment for 8 hours in a cool place.
• If the room is warm, let the sponge rise at room temperature for 1 hour, then for the remaining 7 hours let it rise in the refrigerator.
• When the starter is done, make the dough--place the water in the bowl of an electric mixer and whisk in the yeast by hand.
• Use a rubber spatula to scrape the starter into the water and mix it in.
• Add both flours and the salt, and use the rubber spatula to mix the ingredients into a rough dough.
• Place the bowl on the mixer with the dough hook and mix on lowest speed for 2 minutes; allow the dough to rest 10 minutes.
• Mix on medium speed until dough is smooth, elastic, and slightly sticky, about 2 minutes.
• Scrape the dough into an oiled bowl and turn it over so that the top is oiled; allow the dough to rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
• To form the loaves, scrape the dough onto a floured work surface; shape the dough into a 12-inch square; cut into three 4 x 12 inch rectangles, using a knife or bench scraper.
• Transfer the loaves to the prepared pans, placing 2 on one pan and 1 on the other.
• Cover the loaves with cloth or plastic wrap and allow them to rise at room temperature until doubled, about 1 hour.
• About 15 minutes before the loaves are completely risen, set racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 450°.
• Place the pans in the oven and bake until the loaves are beginning to color well, about 20 minutes.
• Turn the pans from back to front, then place the top pan on the lower rack and the bottom pan on the upper rack; close the oven and decrease temperature to 350°.
• Bake until the loaves are deep golden and the internal temperature reaches about 200 degrees, about 20 additional minutes.
• Cool loaves on racks.
• Serve: cut the bread into 1-inch slices.

WHOLE WHEAT SOURDOUGH HOKKAIDO MILK BREAD

Steps:

• Sweet Stiff Levain
• Mix the levain ingredients in a jar or straight-walled container with space for at least 300% growth.
• Press the starter down with your knuckles or a spatula to create a uniform surface and to push out air.
• Let the levain ripen and rise. At a temperature of 76-78°F, it typically takes up to 10-12 hours for this sweet stiff levain to peak. For my starter, I see 3-3.5 times increase in size at peak. The levain will smell sweet with only a mild tang.
• Tangzhong
• In a sauce pan set to medium heat, stir the milk and flour from the tangzhong ingredient list until blended. Cook for several minutes until it thickens, stirring regularly with a spoon or heat-resistant spatula. Let cool in the pan or, for faster results, in a new bowl. The tangzhong should reach 65°C (149°F) but I don't find I need to measure the temperature because I can see when it gelatinizes. You can prepare this the night before and refrigerate it. Ensure it's covered to prevent it from drying out.
• Final Dough Mixing and Bulk Fermentation
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the milk (consider holding back 10g of milk if this is the first time you're making this bread or if you skip the vital wheat gluten), egg, tangzhong, salt, sugar, diastatic malt powder and levain.
• Mix with a spatula for a few seconds and also break up the levain into many smaller pieces. Next add the flour and vital wheat gluten. I like to use my spatula to mix until there aren't any dry areas.
• Allow the flour to hydrate (fermentolyse) for 20-30 minutes.
• Mix on low speed and then medium speed until you see moderate gluten development, which may take 5-10 mins.
• Lower the mixer speed to avoid splashing, and then drizzle in the melted butter a little at a time, or alternatively add room temperature butter one pat at a time. The dough may come apart; be patient and continue to mix until it comes together before adding in more butter.
• Once all the butter has been incorporated, increase the mixer speed gradually to medium. Mix at medium until the gluten is well developed, approximately 10 mins. You can rest the dough intermittently during this time if your stand mixer heats up. You should be able to pull a windowpane but it won't be quite as thin as a white-flour windowpane because of the presence of bran in the whole wheat flour.
• This is a good time to add inclusions such as my favorite, black sesame seeds. At this point they don't interfere with the gluten development. If you add inclusions, mix until they are incorporated in the dough.
• On the counter, shape the dough into a tight ball. Place it in a bowl, cover and ferment for 2.5 to 3.5 hours at 82°F. There may be some rise visible at this stage, but don't expect the dough to inflate a lot or double in size.
• At the end of the bulk fermentation, you can immediately proceed to shaping or refrigerate the dough for about 1.5 hours to make it easier to shape. You can also retard the dough overnight, however, you may find that this increases the sourness of your bread. Keep in mind that the final proof will take longer if you chill your dough.
• Shaping and Final Proof
• Prepare your pan by greasing it or lining it with parchment paper.
• Lightly flour the top of the dough. Scrape the dough out onto a clean work surface and divide it into four pieces. I like to weigh them to have equal sized lobes.
• Shape the pieces into tight balls and allow them to rest for 5 minutes.
• Using a rolling pin, roll out each ball into a square and then letter fold it. Turn it 90 degrees and roll again to about 8" long. Letter fold again from the long sides so you have a long narrow dough. Then using a rolling pin, roll flatter, keeping the dough relatively narrow. Next roll up each long piece of dough into a tube with some tension.
• The extra letter fold makes the final rolls shorter and fatter so when they are placed in the pan, they don't touch the sides of the pan. This way the swirled ends can expand unimpeded during final proof and remain visible in the final baked bread. This shaping style is for an appearance preference and optional.
• Arrange the rolls of dough inside your lined pan, alternating the direction of the swirls. This placement allows for greater rise during proofing and baking.
• Cover and let the dough proof for 6-8 hours at a warm temperature. I proof at 82°F. You will need longer than 6-8 hours if you chilled your dough for shaping. I proof until the top of the dough comes to within 1 cm of the top edge of the pan.
• Baking
• Brush the dough with the egg-milk wash and begin preheating the oven to 350°F. Just prior to baking, brush with the egg-milk wash again.
• Bake the loaf for 50 minutes or until the internal temperature is at least 190°F, rotating as needed to get even browning. Shield your loaf if it gets brown too early in the baking process.
• After 50 minutes, lower the oven temperature to 325°F and remove the bread from the pan. Bake an additional 10 minutes with the loaf directly on the oven rack.
• When baking is complete, you can brush the top of the loaf with butter while the bread is still hot to keep the top crust soft.
• Let the bread cool about two hours before slicing. Store it wrapped in plastic or beeswax wrap. This bread can last over a week without staling.