South Greek Traditional Bread

Hello all!

I'm writing this after some request I got from a couple of fellow members.

It is a typical recipe and procedure that old women of south Greece make their bread with.

I hope you are comfortable with percentages.

I dont give a high detailed description because my English are not that good and most members already have a lot of experience and will understand what to do about the details.

The sourdough:

It is made from basil and nothing else that is soaked into very warm water over night (about 55o celsius).

At morning time we take only the water and start mixing with white wheat flour as usually done for a typical starter with 100% hydro until we have a strong sourdough. Of course this takes a number of days.

The bread recipe:

50% white wheat flour not enriched with gluten, it is better with a natural level of gluten.

50% durum flour, again not enriched with gluten.

65% water maybe a little more depending of the flour(durum flour absorbs more water). The dough must be moderately soft but not as soft as a high hydro artisan bread.

2% salt.

30% sourdough.

No sugar since durum flour has more simple carbohydrates than starch.

Also puting 2% olive oil is not that common but many like it, your choice.

Procedure.

(There are no autolysis,extreme long fermentation times,huge crumb size or low dough temperatures like many artisan recipes that are common on this site.)

We mix the two flours by hand.

We use water with a temperature that will give as a final dough of at least 30o. celsius.

We dissolve the sourdough into the water and after that the salt as well.

Then we add the flour and knead by hand until we have a dough that don't stick to the walls of the (preferably) wooden basin.

Then we store the dough into the wooden basin with a flour covered cotton sheet like in the below picture but we cover the top as well and let it raise until it is ready for the oven.

Baking.

The traditional way is to bake it (after we cut it with a razor blade or knife on top) into a brick oven that is not as hot as an artisan bread need to be baked since the hydration is not that high, no black crust anywhere :).

Higher temperature at first and lower before it is baked as usual.

A sample (not mine) of this kind of bread.

* The weight of the loaf before baking is usually 1.5 to 2 Kgr.

That's it. I hope you can follow my description.

If I confused you at any part ask me for a better explanation :).