Bread of the Month for the Bread Baking Babes (BBB) is the whole wheat sourdough, Lariano style, hosted by Elizabeth, of blog from OUR kitchen. I have good reasons to make this Jim Lahey’s whole wheat sourdough bread from his book The Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook. I bought the book at his promotional tour in New York City. Ruth Reichl was the moderator for the evening. Jim supplied breads from his bakery for the event. He chose panettone and ossi di morti (bones of the dead). The panettone and the cookies were not only delicious, they were out of the world. Both recipes can be found in The Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook. It was impossible to resist adding this book to my extensive bread book collection. Besides, Jim and his young adorable daughter, whom he and his wife brought along that evening, both signed my book.
When Jim started working with North Country Farms in upstate New York, he thought of Lariano, a town outside of Rome, where the local and ancient variety of wheat is used to make breads. So Jim is encouraging us to track down a regionally grown wheat to make this wheat sourdough bread. To make a long story short, I bought some ancient grains in support of the Greenmarket Regional Grains Project. It’s retail outlet sells local grains at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City.
I used the emmer berries from Lakeview Organic Grain at Penn Yan, NY for the whole wheat sourdough bread. Emmer is an ancient hard durum wheat still commonly used to make pasta in Italy, where it is also called farro. Emmer has a more delicate gluten and is higher in protein than the common wheat. I used the Vitamix to process the grain. Sieved out the bran and used 200 grams of the “high extraction” flour to make a double recipe.
The first step is to make Jim’s biga. It is a stiff biga with 70% hydration. It’s taking twice as long (24 hours) to refresh the starter. Once it gets going, the mixing and fermentation process is quite similar to the Tartine methodology for sourdough breads. Although Jim may consider this as a no-knead approach, turning the dough is akin to the stretch-and-fold technique I use often to help build the gluten structure. I’m following the recipe every step of the way to get the true essence of Jim’s bread.
In the end, I got a delicate flavorful bread with uneven big holes throughout. The crust turned out thinner than most whole wheat breads I baked. It could be that this bread bakes at a lower 450°F oven temperature than I customarily do. I can’t say whether I’ve brought out the exquisite flavors and personality of the upstate breadbasket. But I’m happy to shine the light on the local grains.
Jim’s stiff biga with 70% hydration
Whole Wheat Sourdough (Truccio Saré)
Ingredients
- "jim's" Biga (a stiff starter):
- 70 grams room temperature (65° to 70°F) water
- 10 grams refreshed fermented starter
- 100 grams all-purpose flour
- 0.1 gram (a tiny pinch) fine sea salt
- Whole Wheat Sourdough:
- 40 grams biga
- 600 grams room temperature water
- 200 grams whole wheat flour (I used freshly-milled emmer from NY State)
- 600 grams all-purpose flour
- 16 grams fine sea salt
- wheat bran for dusting
Instructions
"Jim's Biga" Instructions:
Mix together the water and the refreshed starter in a small bowl. Add the flour and a few grains of salt. (Use just a tiny pinch. A bit of salt will speed up fermentation, but a heavy dose of salt will slow it down.) The dough will look lumpy, uneven and small. Cover the bowl and prepare to wait 24 hours for it to triple in size. Don't be dismayed if nothing happens for the first 12 hours—it takes a while to get going. But once the fermentation starts, it will take off, and it is likely to grow more in the final 4 hours than it had in the first 16. You might note color changes in the biga as the top layer dries out and oxidizes a bit: this is perfectly fine and to be expected.
Whole Wheat Sourdough Instructions:
Whisk the biga and water together in a large bowl.
Mix the final dough: Add the wheat and white flours and the salt to the water and use a spoon or spatula (or hand) to vigorously mix all the ingredients together. Stop as soon as the flour and water come together—it should take only around 15 seconds. Scrape any dough off the spoon or your hands and drop it back into the bowl. Cover the bowl loosely with a tea towel and let it sit at room temperature for 20 minutes.
Turn the dough: Gently lift up each side of the dough and fold it into the middle of the bowl. It should take 5 seconds or so from start to finish—this is more of a gesture than a precise technique. Folding the dough on top of itself a few times is enough to speed up the fermentation and improve the texture of the finished loaf. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and let rest at room temperature for 10-18 hours, until it has increased in size by a third to a half.
Pre-shaping: When the dough is ready to shape, it will be larger, airier and have a soft, spongy texture. You should see bubbles under the surface of the dough. Turn the dough again; pick up the sides of the dough, fold them gently into the middle, and flip the dough over. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and wait 20 minutes or until the dough shows signs that it is beginning to grow again—a bubble or two or a slight coverall expansion.
Shaping: Using a dough scraper or your hands, fold the edges of the dough into the center and gently pick it up. Shape it into a ball by holding it both hands and gently tugging the sides down and under, into the middle of the dough, with the goal of making the dough into a nice, taut ball. Take care to stop before the dough begins to tear. You want to create enough tension in your ball of dough that it will hold its shape as it proofs, but not so much tension that the exterior of the dough rips or snags. Put the dough seam side up in a bran-coated proofing basket. Cover it with a tea towel.
Proofing: Let the dough sit at room temperature until it has doubled in size, 2 to 4 hours. Once the dough has nearly doubled, place a rack in the center of the oven. Put Dutch ovens in the oven and heat to 450°F. Use oven mitts to carefully remove the pot and lid. Invert the dough on a parchment paper and lower it into the pot. Use a serrated or sharp paring knife to score the loaf. Cover the pot immediately and place the pot in the oven.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes with the lid on. Carefully remove the lid and bake for another 10 t0 15 minutes, until the crust is very, very dark brown. On account of the higher mineral and fiber content in whole wheat flour, the crust will naturally be much darker than that of breads solely with white flour, even before it is fully done. Let the bread cook, uncovered, until the top of the bread nearly blackens and the sides reach dark brown. Remove the loaf from the pot. Cool the loaf on a wire rack. The loaf will continue to cook as it cools, so try to wait an hour or so before cutting into it.
Notes
Adapted from Jim Lahey's The Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook
2 Comments
Kelly
May 5, 2018 at 9:42 pmSigned copy, wow! Love your crust, crumb and grains, and that beautiful lid pop on your loaf. All beautiful!
Shirley@EverOpenSauce
May 6, 2018 at 5:58 pmThank you, Kelly! The credits go to Jim and his wonderful recipe.