Hello everyone!
I've been having a blast getting back to baking, made a starter, had some quite successful breads and then this happened....
I wanted to make a simple 1,2,3 sourdough bread and to include some caramelised onions.
I'll leave bellow the exact recipe, time and temperature.
It came out quite flat and dense. The dough was very stick and I tried several kneading methods and stretching and folding and it still felt like handling pudding.
If anyone has the time and the patience to help a gal out, i'm suspecting there was too much hydration and low protein flour? Keep in mind that I've been baking with the same type of flour before and it worked fine. Was it that the preferment was kept out too long? Bah! It's driving me crazy.
Recipe:
Preferment (16h)- the temperature varied from 6h at 22° , then 6h at 10° , then in the fridge for 2h and then back to 22° for 2h (kept having to postpone the mixing)
10 gr sourdough starter
110 gr water
80 gr white 000 type flour
Dough:
600 gr white 000 type flour
20 gr whole wheat flour
400 gr water
14 gr salt
Caramelised onions:
200 gr
Steps:
Autolyse dough 4h
Mixed and kneaded preferment, dough and onions.
Bulk fermentation 2h, 3xSF every 30minutes
Preshaped (pile of goo), 5 minutes rest, final shape
Final proofing 1h at room temp (22 degrees), 2 h in the fridge (5 degrees) (seems chaotic, i know, i was hoping some time in the fridge would help it keep it's shape when transferring to the dutch oven)
It also stuck to the floured towel when transferring to the pot so that's great
Baked, sliced and highly disappointed.
Thanks a bunch and happy baking.
I'll leave it to the experts on this site who have a lot more experience than I do, but it seems like 10 g of starter for a 16-hour pre-ferment (most of which was at room temp), with an additional 9 hours tacked onto that for the remainder of the recipe (if my math is correct), is a very long time to ask your tiny bit of starter to do it's thing for a loaf this size, if lofty oven spring was your goal. That being said, I've never tried to incorporate caramelized onions into a dough--I generally save those kinds of wet, acidic ingredients for toppings on flatbread or pizza. The onions presumably added even more weight to the dough, which probably didn't help. If the onions are not part of the problem, I would shorten your pre-ferment and kick up the total amount of starter a bit. However, it sounds and looks like you made a very tasty onion ciabatta, so not exactly a bad thing ;-).
Loving the positive twist with the ciabatta, i'll take it:) Thanks for the reply and suggestions!
I saw this on the homepage
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/33946/hamburger-onion-parmesan-buns
And the title inspired me to try some combination of onion bread. I left my attempt on the bottom of that page. The onions made it wet so needed an extra half cup of flour.
Thanks, the buns look delicious!
Good morning. I'd assume as a starting point that 50% of your onions are water, reduce the water in the main dough accordingly by 100 gr and then adjust the water if needed as you mix.
Another possibility that comes to mind is drying the onions on an oven tray at 100C for 45 minutes to one hour and see what happens if you still keep most of the water in the recipe. I'm aware this technique might impact flavor.
Just as an example, I sometimes bake a recipe for a spinach bread that uses no water in the main dough, just in the pre-ferment. The water content in the spinach is sufficient to get things going.
I'd intuitively double the amount of starter in your pre-ferment as, well. Just like that, shot from the hip ?.
Salt content looks a tad high as, well? It might have impacted fermentation too.
Safe bakes!
Mornin'!
It makes a lot of sense now that you say it that the onions added a lot of moisture. I kinda caramelised them but also added some extra water by the end so they were really mushy.
Spinach bread sounds amazing and spinach is in season right now where i live.
I'll be sure to give it another try, maybe fry the onions for the deeper flavour and colour and also reduce water amount in dough.
Thanks so much for the advice, have a great day!
I can't see them in the crumb so I'm wondering how you handled the onions. Many use dried onions for better flavour. Or sauté the water out of the onions and let then get nice and golden brown. Be aware that onions are antibacterial in nature. Putting then early into the dough may be the problem but not always. Try adding them later after the dough gets to rising or during shaping, spreading them out on flattened dough before rolling them up to keep them inside. You may have a point about using a low protein flour. A bread flour or even half bread flour, would give you longer working times using a sourdough starter. You could also have added some instant yeast to speed up the dough when using an overripe starter. Get it risen fast.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/wildriceandonionbread
I think I handled them poorly from the beginning, you can't really see or taste them in the bread. I caramelised them but also they kinda boiled in their own juice. I'll try making crispy fried onions and adding them to the dough, hoping they will keep the colour and flavor.
Thanks a bunch for the advice! Have a great day!