Sarah Owens Sweet Potato Sourdough
I just tried my first recipe from Sourdough by Sarah Owens. I used the Sweet Potato Levain recipe and doubled it, but substituted canned pumpkin for sweet potato. The recipe used 300g leaven, 680g water, 360g pumpkin puree, 20g molasses, 900g bread flour, 240g whole wheat flour, 60g rye, and 24g sea salt.
At 10pm the night before the bake I built the levain.
At 6am the following morning I mixed the water, pumpkin, flours, and water with the starter and allowed to autolyse for 30 minutes. I then sprinkled salt on top and then did 70 slap and folds. I let rest for 30 minutes and then did 40 slap and folds. I then did 3 stretch and folds. I didn't touch it during the last hour of bulk ferment. The dough had almost doubled after 3.5 hours.
I pre-shaped and then shaped the dough and put in the fridge for an 8-hour retarded fermentation. I baked for 22 minutes with lid on and 17 minutes with lid off. I think I could have let the crust brown a bit more, but was worried about it catching because of the sugar in the dough.
Tastes good, but a bit disappointed in the crumb. Decent oven spring.
Comments
Looks good to me. With that much whole wheat and also some rye you won't get much more of an open crumb unless you increase the hydration more. It also depends on how you handle the dough. Overall it is a very good crumb for this type of formula.
Ian
I never heard of Sweet Potato Levain before. Sounds interesting.
It is good! Just a nice subtle sweet flavor
I am making this as my next bake (tomorrow, but baking Saturday). I am going to use baked sweet potato like the recipe calls for. The recipe is supposed to make almost 1300g of dough (1292g for those who need to be exact... you know who you are hehe) that is then split in two. So I am going to make a half recipe since that is close enough to 1.5 lbs. I usually end up eating the sourdoughs by myself while the family eats other breads.
If I like the results, I might consider dividing by 1.5 instead for a slightly bigger loaf that uses a nice round 100g of starter.
That looks lovely Ilene, the crumb is perfect for spreading something on it, love it.
Benny