Make Beautiful Sourdough With Claire Saffitz | Try This at Home | NYT Cooking

You know, when I tell people, I say I don't do yoga, I

make

bread. I don't really like yoga, but I really like making bread and I feel like making bread is something meditative. Oops, sorry, let's be real. Deep down,

this

is maybe deeper than we need. Hi everyone, I'm Claire Sapitz and today is a special day because I'm going to show you probably my favorite thing to

make

and bake of all time, and that's

sourdough

bread, baking bread with

sourdough

. It's actually more of a method and technique than a recipe. I can't think of anything that's more satisfying to make you feel fulfilled, on the one hand, that you've created

this

thing where you've tapped into the kind of life force that just exists all around us and then you can eat sourdough and, like bread most delicious there is, sourdough is a paradox because it is both very simple and very complex.

The real heart of the matter is that sourdough is a naturally leavened bread and that natural evidence comes from something called a starter, so starter in essence is basically a mixture of flour and water that has been inoculated with all of these different types. of yeasts and bacteria that occur naturally everywhere, so there are natural yeasts and bacteria all around us. it's on surfaces it's in plants it's in the air we breathe and naturally leavened or sourdough bread is bread that uses those natural yeast bacteria instead of commercial yeast, we don't need that to eliminate that starter it's fascinating, it's the life force of your breathes at this stage in a coveted landscape, you probably know someone who has starter, so ask about your friends as people are always trying to give it away because they have to feed it once a week and once You have it, it's very easy. keep it so that when you have a starter, you have all these yeasts and bacteria that live in this flour and water mixture and they feed on the carbohydrates in the flour and break them down into sugars and metabolize them and then produce gas as a byproduct eventually those yeasts and bacteria will run out of food, so you will have to feed your starter.

It's like having a very low maintenance pet, all you have to do is feed it once a week, now for most

home

bakers, keeping your starter in the refrigerator makes the most sense because those yeasts and bacteria are sensitive. to the temperature. You'll keep it in your refrigerator because presumably you don't bake every day. You really don't want to use starter straight out of the refrigerator to bake bread because you want to give those yeasts and bacteria a chance to revive, grow, and become really active. I'll just take 25 grams of this and feed them again if you've chosen the day of the week that If you want to do most of the work the day before you take the starter out of the refrigerator in the morning, feed it, obviously, return the rest to the refrigerator, then feed once more at night and then in the afternoon.

The next morning, hopefully, the idea is that we've reached this kind of ideal level of activity and then you can start mixing the dough. I have the same starter here but it's in three different stages of maturity, so this is a starter I just gave it. thick and a little lumpy, this is the starter I gave it last night and it has just reached this point of ideal ripeness. This starter has gone way past that point, it rose, became super bubbly and then collapsed and is now super runny, it smells very sour, I can still feed it and keep using it but this is already past the point where I want to use it to make bread.

I have neglected my starter at

home

because I am embarrassed to say that maybe not months definitely. There's nothing wrong with several weeks, as long as it doesn't grow mold and you know what it looks like. Your starter motor can be saved. I have never called it a starter while I wait for my starter to mature I am going to do a step called autolease it is a step that will help us develop a large amount of gluten from the beginning if the starter is the life force then the gluten is the backbone that you need to like trap the gases and to create this

beautiful

chewy, airy structure for your bread, we use a thousand grams of flour in total and that will make two loaves because, like you're going to go through a pretty long process , you'll want at least two loaves. of bread in the end we know that we want a lot of gluten in our bread, that means using white bread flour which has a high protein content for gluten, but we also want very good tasting whole wheat flours that have less protein in proportion to the white flour . great flavor hydration is the term for the ratio of water and flour if I have a thousand grams of flour and 750 grams of water then I have a dough with 75 percent hydration it's like one on top of the other this is a really important tool use a dough scraper bowl here when you are baking bread, this is a pretty indispensable tool, it really works as an extension of your hand and helps you work cleaner, you won't get tons of wet, sticky dough on your hand, the goal This is just for hydrate all the flour, but I don't have to really mix it.

I'm not trying to work it. I'll cover it with a damp towel and then it'll just hang like it's not. I have the starter but nothing is really going to happen it's just all that gluten is starting to form and then when the starter is ready we'll add it to the dough okay my dough has been on auto sheets for about an hour . I can tell that my starter is at the peak stage of maturity, so you can see I have duct tape that I put there when I fed him, the height has basically doubled. Another sign is that I have all these bubbles on top, this is when all that yeast and bacteria are most lively when you add them to the bread, although they are at their full potential to really rise the bread.

However, there is another test to see if it is ready, it is called a float test, so this is a test you can use to guarantee. that you're using your starter at the sweet spot so I have a bowl of room temperature tap water here and I'm just going to pinch off a little bit of starter and put it in the bowl and I want to see if it floats it's floating it didn't sink all the way down and that means the starter has all this air in it and it's really in the sweet spot where we want to add it to our flour and water mixture if the starter sinks and you know it doesn't. done, but go ahead and put the lid back on, let it sit until it passes a float test and you should really do the test every 30 minutes or so, but when you start to see a lot of bubbles packed and it looks super aerated, that's when you're probably right on that point and you can see that as this has sat, look what has happened to the texture, so this is the purpose of auto leaves: to develop tons and tons of gluten before adding everything the rest, so now I'm going to add the launcher to this.

There's a particular technique that I like to use to incorporate the starter into the audilies and it's just this lobster claw pinch method, so this helps incorporate things from two different textures. Sourdough bread is more of a practice than anything else, the amount of learning you do from bread one to low 50, through 1100 and bread 200 is like it never ends, I'm sure I'll get questions from the people on how can I make this in a stand mixer and the answer. Yes, you could, but I don't use it to make sourdough. The main reason is that it is important for me to be able to measure his development to have an idea of ​​what is happening.

I think feeling the dough is part of that process now. I'm going to add my salt. I'm using kosher salt. The most important thing is that you weigh the salt just as you have done with all the other components. I have 20 grams, so that's two percent salt, which is kind of a standard ratio and now I like to add a little bit more water when I incorporate the salt because it helps incorporate it into the dough easier. I remember my first sourdough bread. It was so sad, guys, it was so sad. Seriously, it looked like a flying saucer, somehow it was baked really flat, but the bottom curved up looked crazy, it looked like a UFO, my roommate came in and was like what is that, like it was bread and She said: Actually the answer was no, it was.

It wasn't really bread and that was something that I started, I made it myself and I had no idea what I was doing and I didn't understand sourdough like I understand it now, which is that it's as hands-on as you can. Don't go on autopilot when you're trying to do it, I just didn't know what I was doing and I didn't know what I didn't know, okay, so I've got all the salt built in. I'm going to do the same. The next step is to mix, but first I want to let this hang in the bowl and I want it to absorb some of that extra water that we added.

I want the gluten to relax a little bit so I'm just going to set my damp towel back on top and just 10 minutes and I'm going to come back and we're going to do the next stage which is mixing after a short rest I'm ready to mix this dough , this mixing technique is very simple, we're Keeping everything inside the bowl, I'm going to lift it up and fold it back into the dough, so I fold it up and then over itself and press it down as well now that we've added the starter that we have classified. having officially entered this stage called bulk fermentation, where now that the starter is there, it begins to feed on all that new flour it comes into contact with.

Could you make this in a mixer? Yes, is it much easier? Yes, is there anything I like to play with the dough at this stage. Yes, I think the goal for a first loaf is for it to be pleasant to eat, if not perfect, and you want it to be good enough to want to make it again. That's the goal, my personal goal for this recipe, is just to get people to practice it. It's unrealistic to think that someone will get a tartine-level loaf of bread from its first bake, but as long as it sparks interest in one day getting a loaf of tartine, then it's mission accomplished, so after 10 minutes of mixing I'm going to do the window glass test, pinching off maybe a golf ball sized piece of dough, I'm going to work. outward in all directions one thing that will indicate if I have developed enough strength in the dough is if I can get the dough to form a thin layer that is in fact so thin that light passes through it and that is where the name window pain comes from. , so if it breaks, I'm not there yet and I want to keep mixing, it's not the best windowpane, but it's all we need, we're ready to let this dough basically rise, which is called fermentation to bulk, so it's during bulk fermentation where the lactic acid bacteria that are in the starter produce acids that create the bitter taste, the yeast releases gases and that gets trapped by the gluten that we just developed, so you'll have all of these like big airy holes and so we want to let that do its thing and we'll come back basically every hour and take a look and make some folds so this is our dough that's been in bulk fermentation for about an hour it's very possible that you see something Bubbles are forming, but mostly what you will notice is that the dough has become very loose.

We want to gain strength throughout the bulk fermentation process by making a series of these folds and similar to the motion that I use to mix the dough. to slide my hand down the length of the bowl lift it this time being a little gentler and then place it back on itself then I give it a 90 degree turn and then the same lifting this is stretching the dough helping it to reform and Reconnect those gluten chains and now the last one on the fourth side, so now I'm going to cover it and this is bulk fermentation.

I'm going to come back basically every hour, check it, see what's happening, measure how it's rising and make those folds this has been sitting for another hour after the first fold so two hours total in bulk fermentation and it's time to make another fold. I can see there's some air in the dough, it looks really good, so again I want to do this gently. because I don't want to deflate any gas that has built up, but I can feel that it feels more airy, it has a lighter texture, there are some big air bubbles in there, that's what we want, so now in an hour we'll come back and do it .

For the third time, there is a range for bulk fermentation given the factors of temperature, starter and flowers and all that, it could be anywhere from four to seven hours. That's why this is an all-day process, it's like it's not very easy. -You can go do other things, but you'll want to come back and check on it from time to time. Another way to do it is to use both hands to reach under the dough and fold it over on itself a few times. If you feel more comfortable, just do that kind of thing with one hand on all four sides of the bowl.

It has been a long and massive fermentation. It's a little cold here, but we're finally ready to move on to the next stage of the process. is forming and shaping our loaves and preparing them as proof and we should all pause for a moment to be grateful for the incredibletransformation of this mass. I would say it has basically doubled in volume. This bread feels super airy, almost whipped, so this is it. How do I know we are done with bulk fermentation? Okay, so this is what we want to do. I want to divide this dough into two pieces in these baskets.

I'm going to sprinkle the surface with a little bit of flour, it's actually a 50 50 mix of rice flour and regular wheat flour. Rice flour is good because it sticks less, it doesn't absorb liquid like wheat flour does, so it tends to do a better job of protecting the basket. coatings and just not having anything that sticks to the surface, so I have a little wand here to remove the dust. You don't need this. You could do this on your surface. Which is great, but this helps and now I'm going to Let the dough come out of the bowl on its own.

I don't want too many of the air bubbles we worked so hard to develop to burst, so I'll try to work quickly. It is good to use it with decisive movements. at this stage, but I'm just going to divide the dough, oh my goodness, it's so sticky. Try to separate them because they will start to merge again. I'm going to do a step called preforming which is laying them out like they're a It's a nice little more organized package and I'm basically going to gather all the edges of the dough together and bring them towards the center to try to make something that has a round shape.

I'll sprinkle it with a little more. flour and what I'm doing is just tucking the ends of the dough underneath and getting it to settle into this tight round shape so one side is preformed. I'm going to do the other side. Really the main thing is what you want. Be nice because I don't want to like squish the dough and pop all those bubbles and everything, so here I have my two preformed halves, so I'm going to let them rest for about 15 minutes. One step I will do very quickly. It's just to dust off my fermentation baskets.

I want to flour them generously so that it doesn't stick too much inside the baskets. These baskets are called banatone. They are very, very convenient. They help give it a very nice, even regular shape. dough you don't need the vanatome, but I recommend it so you can see that after resting they have relaxed a little and have widened and become a little more squat, so they are in a good place to shape. Shaping is difficult, the dough is sticky when you look at someone who is very good at it and it doesn't stick to their hands, it gives you a false sense of your own skill, but it looks difficult so I'll try to turn it around.

In one motion, I pull it out to make it longer and now I'm basically going to fold it like a gift, from one side to the other, if necessary, you can give it a little pinch to make it stick. I'm going to start at the end closest to me and roll it up like a jelly roll. Now I'm going to transfer it to my basket. This part again is a bit risky, but shaping it takes a lot of practice if you feel like it. If you don't get it on your first try, it might mean that your bread doesn't have that

beautiful

classic bread shape, but it will still taste great, and as long as you try to keep plenty of air in it, you'll be able to. basket seam side up, I can add a little more flour on top and I'll set this aside while I make the other piece.

What you're trying to achieve by shaping it is that you're trying to create tension. In dough, you're basically trying to stretch the dough along the surface around itself and that tension is what's going to help your loaves rise and come out and get this beautiful spring from the oven. There's a final step called testing, testing, it's like the second one. increase that occurs after the lobes have formed, I'll let them sit at room temperature, cover them and set them aside and then we'll come back and take a look at them after they've shown that we have I've been here all day, I know which is a process, we are very close, so we are going to do the final test to see if the loaves are approved, what I am looking for is a sign that the dough has relaxed, so when I prick my finger on all those gluten chains are going to want to make the dose come back, but I want it to come back slowly, so if you push your finger in and it comes back quickly, it's not tested, but let it go a little longer, so now these are fermented, the dough it feels great, it feels super light and airy, it's nice and relaxed and now they just need to go to the fridge.

One of the things I really like about sourdough is that they go in the refrigerator and you can bake them after eight hours in the refrigerator or 48 hours in the refrigerator, so for the next few days these can be hanging in your refrigerator ready to Bake whenever you like. I just want to say that we are at the most exciting stage of the whole thing, which is baking the buns, this is the part that makes my heart race a little. I like to get excited and nervous at the same time, even after so many years of baking sourdough at home, just because it's so exciting and each loaf of bread is like a snowflake. one is unique, it's very exciting to see how they turn out, so I have my Dutch oven preheating and we're going to cold bake.

You don't want your breads to reach room temperature because in the long run you already know how to bake. a 500 degree oven, 40 degrees here and there won't make much difference, plus it's much easier to handle the dough when it's still cold, dust the surface of the dough because this side will be the side it will be in contact with. with the dutch oven I don't want it to stick now I use parchment paper to help me transfer the dough from the surface to the super hot dutch oven and it feels less dangerous. I'm going to peel it off slowly.

I don't have to dust with flour at this stage but I like to have the contrast on the surface and now I'm going to use something called alarm lom it just needs blade and french it's basically a razor blade with a small handle but I find it has more control by just doing it like that, there are all kinds of fancy scoring methods you can use for beginners. I recommend only a longitudinal cut. Now cutting just gives the bread dough a means to expand in a predictable way if you didn't cut it. If the bread would still rise but crack and form a fissure in places you know and it just doesn't look as good, I'll quickly rise and the lid goes on.

I didn't preheat the lid just to make this part easier and now we go back to the oven so we bake in a dutch oven with the lid on initially so we have tons of moisture in the dough that the moisture releases and turns into steam and then the dust oven catches it so we create this kind of tightly closed environment with a lot of humidity for the dough we take the lid off and it finishes baking it gets its beautiful color okay 20 minutes later I'm going to take the lid off the top dutch oven , be very careful because it's at 500 degrees it looks so beautiful, okay, I can't wait, oh, I love it so much, so I like to bake my breads pretty dark, I want a lot of caramelization and color on the outside.

I like a really well developed crust so the level of doneness is really up to you I get really dark this looks perfect oh and here it is here is bread number one. I see tons of little blisters on the outside of the dough and I love to see that that's a sign of a really well-fermented dough. I like to burst them. sometimes it's funny so unfortunately we have to wait while it cools, there's all this steam inside and that steam goes to the outside of the bread, when it happens the crust softens and then once it cools it gets soft again toughen. again, so I don't want to cut it because then all the steam will escape and dry out.

I mean, as much as I love warm bread, and believe me, I love warm bread, you have to let it cool completely, so it'll take a couple of hours. They expanded very differently and they like the shape to be very different even though it is the same mass. The same fermentation basket. The same modeling technique. They are both beautiful in their own way. Very, very pleased with the results every time I cut them. bread. I get really excited because I'm really curious to see what the inside looks like. It had a really nice oven spring. I love how high it went with a nice opening.

I'm always looking for various sizes of holes and bubbles. It's like he's really excited to eat it. It's going to be so good that it doesn't get any less exciting the more I do it. I don't even know where to start. I'm going to try the grilled cheese. Honestly, it's so good, one of the things I appreciate most about making your own sourdough is the contrast between that super crunchy, crunchy exterior and the softness and springiness of the interior. I know you can go to the store and buy sourdough bread and I know you can probably go to your local artisan baker and buy really good bread, but that's not really the point.

The whole point of trying this at home and making sourdough is that it's more of a practice, it's something you can do over and over again. and I learn a lot and I find it very rewarding and I hope you do too so try this at home and thanks for watching why don't I eat more grilled cheese? Don't know.