Mottled Golden Semolina Sourdough

I would LOVE to share my semolina recipe and the recipe for the semi-liquid dough.  I will do the write-up tomorrow.  Until then, thank you everyone for ALL your kind words. It's been really fun. 

Shiao-Ping

THE NIGHT BEFORE BAKE DAY (AFTER DINNER)

75 g active starter @75% hydration

50 g rye flour

50 g strong white flour

75 g water  

I made sure that my starter was very active.  The night before bake day, I refreshed my starter as per the above quantities.  The next morning, my starter tripled.  With a total weight of 250 g at an overall hydration of 75%, that means there is 143 g flours and 107 g water  (ie, 250 divided by 1.75 = 143, being the flour; 250 - 143 = 107, being the water).  

ON THE BAKE DAY  

(1) FOR THE DOUGH

240 g Golden Semolina Flour (from King Arthur Flour)

124 g strong white flour

226 g water

20 g honey

a very small pinch of vitamin C

10 g salt  

I aimed to have a final dough weight of around 860 g and dough hydration of 69.5%.  I wanted my starter to be equal weight of semolina flour to compensate the fact that semolina flour is a somewhat inferior flour in terms of stand-alone taste.  For that reason I also used honey (NOT sugar) to add a bit of refinement into the taste of semolina flour, but not too much that it is easily discernible.  

I worked back to get my flour requirement: 860 divided by 1.695 = 507 being total flours I would need; subtract 143 that was already in the starter and 240 that I wanted for semolina, that gave me 124 as the weight for my white flour.  Next, for the water: 860 minus 507 = 353 being the total liquid requirement; subtract 107 that is in the starter and 20 honey, I got 226 as the extra water that I needed to make up the hydration.   

METHOD

I first mixed my starter with water, then added all of the other ingredients (except salt), mixed well, autolysed for 20 min, then put salt in and mixed again at low speed until combined; total mixing time was no more than 5 - 6 min.  

By 8 am, the dough was placed in a lightly oiled container for first fermentation which lasted 5 hours until 1 pm when it doubled in size.  During that time I stretched and folded the dough 3 times.  I actually took the dough out and gently stretched and folded them in the air with my hands.  (Depending on your room temp, you may not need 5 hours.)    

Half hour before the dough was done its bulk fermentation, I prepared the semi-liquid solution for brushing as below.  

(2) FOR THE SEMI-LIQUID DOUGH FOR BRUSHING

40 g rice flour

44 g water*

4 g yeast (this is not a typo)

4 g sugar

4 g oil

3 g salt  

* Note: the ratio of water to rice flour in "Special and Decorative Breads" is 90 to 100 (ie, 90% hydration), but I find this consistency impossible to brush onto the surface of my shaped dough, so I increased it to 110% hydration.  We all know what a 90% hydration dough looks like and feels like.  Actually I found that even at 110% hydration the semi-liquid dough was still hard to apply.

A word of caution:  Try not to increase the hydration to much more than 110%.  I was being smart and ruined 2 out of the 4 doughs with a very running solution - the mottled effect just didn't show up.  That was why there were only 2 breads in my photo instead of 4!    

In theory, this semi-liquid solution can be used on top of any bread dough you fancy.  The breads can be round or long loaf or any shape you like.    

Once the semi-liquid solution was prepared, I divided my dough into 4 pieces and shaped them into rods.  I shaped them only once because I didn't want them to be too tight.  I wanted the oven expansion.   

Now, here came the tricky part.  I placed the shaped rods seam side down on a big piece of baking paper, leaving room between them so they didn't touch one another.  Then, using my Chinese calligraphy brush, I applied the semi-liquid dough onto all of the exposed surface of the rods.  It wasn't easy because, as you brush your shaped dough, you don't want to depress it; you want to be as gentle as possible.  A very soft brush helps. The surface seems uneven once you've done the brushing; but that is OK.    

It was not possible to cover the doughs with a towel directly because their surface was wet!   I placed rice bowls all around the edges of the baking paper so I could drape a big piece of cloth over the whole thing.   Then, with the "paint" on, the shaped rods went into second fermentation for 2 hours until  3pm.  They didn't rise much more, maybe another 50% only.  An hour before that, I turned on my oven to 230 C (450F).   

To load all 4 rods onto my baking stone measuring 34 cm x 34 cm, I cut open the baking paper so I could slide each individual rod onto a peel, then from the peel to the baking stone.  Then, I poured a cup of cold water into my lava rocks sitting at the bottom of the oven.  I saw the rods expand before my eyes within a minute or two.  It was most amazing to watch.  I guess the wet "paint" on the surface of the dough meant that there was a lot of moisture generated internally and that helped the oven spring tremendously.  I saw the rods literally doubled in the oven.   

I turned the oven down to 210 C (410F) after the first 12 minutes because they were just browning too quickly. You do have to watch them.  They were baked a further 15 minutes. 

And, that is it!  Done.  My husband said my breads are mottled breads, but they ain't tigers breads!  My daughter also said leopards have spots but tigers don't. Tigers have stripes!  Well, I don't know.  But I do know tigers and leopards originate from Asia.  Perhaps the Dutch saw leopards in 16th century when they were sailing around the world and mistook them for tigers.  Do you think artists and bakers are the most exact people you've ever met?  

Shiao-Ping  

p.s.   Hi Yippee, I have since been able to source yellow semolina flour from my local flour stores.  I am still learning about flours and maybe many flours are alike but just different names.  There aren't Japanese flours here that I know of.   

Thank you Yozza, your fomula for the semi-liquid dough (or should I say "paste") is quite similar to the one I have in "Special and Decorative Breads" by A Couet and E Kayser, p 34 - 35.  The mottled bread in the book is a commercial yeasted bread (which takes less than an hour for first fermentation and 1 1/2 hours for proofing).

Thank you again.

Shiao-Ping

Hi Giraffe, I hope your sourdough comes up the way you wanted.