Sundried Tomato Shallot Herbs de Provence Sourdough Boule

I seldom make boules, so I decided I need to brush off some of the rust on that skill and also had long wanted to make a bread with sundried tomatoes, so here is my take on this.

For one loaf only. Total weight ~ 900 

340 g white bread flour 80% total

87 g whole wheat flour 20% total 

Total Flour = 427 g

Total water 307 g 78% hydration  (82% hydration first time)

Final dough for mixing

340 g white bread flour

49 g whole red fife flour

water 294 g (none reserved - add levain and salt without reserved water) 78% hydration

I added another 5 g water with the levain to mix and more with coil folds so estimate 82% hydration in the end

2% salt.  8.54 g

Diastatic malt 0.5% 2.14 g

76 g Levain  1:2:2  17 g starter, 34 g whole wheat flour, 34 g water

Inclusions

Sun dried tomatoes chopped 20% 85 g

Shallot chopped and raw 10% 42.4 g

Herbs de Provence 1%. 4.24 g (3.09 g used)

Mixed together and placed in a bowl to be added during lamination

I did an overnight build of the levain starting with fridge cold water and an hour in the fridge taking it out to a cool room temperature at bedtime.

The final dough was mixed including the salt again with fridge cold water and placed in the fridge for 1 hour taking it out to a cool room temperature at bedtime.

In the morning the levain was just past peak and was immediately mixed into the saltolysed dough, Rubaud mixing was employed for 5 minutes to ensure the levain was well mixed and some gluten was starting to be developed.

Bulk Fermentation was done at 82ºF for the duration. 

After a 30 mins rest a strong letter fold on the counter was done.  30 g dough was removed, folding it several times to get a good ball shape and placed in the aliquot jar.  I have posted about this elsewhere so refer to that post if you are interested in learning more.

After another 30 mins rest a lamination was employed.  Use the lamination to add the inclusions in three parts to ensure that they are evenly spread throughout the crumb when baked.

Another 3 coil folds were employed at 30-45 mins intervals until a good windowpane.

Bulk fermentation continued at 82ºF until the aliquot jar showed a 60% rise.  The dough was then immediately shaped and placed into a banneton and placed into the fridge at 2ºC overnight.

The next morning, oven was pre-heated at 500ºF and the steam set up was done for steam baking.  For boules I use my steam set up instead of my dutch oven which is oval.

After 1 hour of pre-heating my dough was removed from the fridge and immediately flipped onto a parchment lined peel.  I brushed off the rice flour and scored the boule trying a spiral for the first time.  I usually brush water on liberally at this point but in the fuss of doing a spiral score for the first time I forgot.

Load the dough ensuring that the steam set up is going and bake at 450ºF for 20 mins.  Remove the steam set up and then drop the temperature to 420ºF turning on convection and bake for another 20-25 mins turning halfway through until crust is a mahogany colour and baked through.

My adding inclusions during lamination video

My shaping a boule video

71C375B3-70BE-4C40-9F5E-48496D3AFBE5.jpeg

49FCEF27-0B78-48EB-90C2-D26E905B7423.jpeg

83A57790-FFEC-4275-842E-BB1025949EA1.jpeg

D86C5E2D-A270-4A56-A955-D37FD4D221BD.jpeg

I didn’t achieve good oven spring.  I suspect I degassed the dough too much during shaping.  I am obviously rusty at shaping a boule.  Hope the crumb isn’t too bad as a result.