Black Garlic Sourdough

How to make a soft and fluffy sourdough bread that is swirled with black garlic.

CourseBaking

CuisineAmerican

Keywordbread

Prep Time12

Cook Time1 10

Servings

Calories191kcal

600 grams Bread Flour
470 grams Water
90 grams Sourdough Starter
12 grams Salt
1 Head Black Garlic Peeled, and crushed into a paste. Or 2 Tbs of Black Garlic Mince

Mix together the flour and water in a large bowl, let rest for about 45 minutes
Stretch the dough over itself, rotate the bowl and repeat for each side (4 stretches and folds)
Let rest for another 30 minutes

Spread about 1/5th of the sourdough starter (90 grams) over the dough and sprinkle over roughly 1/5 of the salt (12 grams) over the dough
Grab the dough and stretch it and gently fold it in
Repeat the process of adding the salt and sourdough to the dough and folding it in until it is all incorporated
*Think of this like lamination where you layer the ingredients to combine*
Let the dough rest for another 45 minutes

Lightly flour (all purpose flour) a surface and spread out your dough into a large and thin rectangle
Evenly spread your black garlic purée over the dough
Now fold the dough over itself and shape the loaf
*See article above for step-by-step directions on shaping your dough*

Place the dough in a prepared banneton and place in the refrigerator overnight (6-48 hours).
This is called the 'bulk ferment', and you can let it hangout in the fridge for up to 48 hours. The longer you let it ferment in the refrigerator the tangier the bread will become (and easier to digest for you). However, a longer fermentation for the dough may give you a less fluffy and less tall loaf.
Do a shorter fermentation for a taller, rounder loaf. Do a longer fermentation for a more flavorful and easier on the tummy loaf.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees F (260C)
While your oven is preheating, add in your dutch oven to the oven and let it heat up for 20 minutes.
Remove your bread from the refrigerator and using a razer blade, score the surface
Remove your dutch oven from your oven and line with either parchment paper or a bread sling.
Add in the bread, cover the dutch oven and bake for 10 minutes
Remove bread from oven and do a second score over where you scored previously, this helps prevent unwanted cracks in your bread.
Cover your bread in the dutch oven, reduce heat to 450F, and bake for another 30 minutes
Remove the lid from the dutch oven (At this point you can spray your bread with a spray bottle (helps make the bread more crusty), slide in a baking sheet in the rack below your dutch oven and bake for 10 more minutes
Remove the bread from the dutch oven and let it cool on a cooling rack. Let it fully cool for about 2 hours before slicing into the bread. Slicing into your bread while it's hot makes the interior of the bread gummy and it doesn't store as well.
Store in a bread box for up to 1 week. If it starts to get hard from sitting out run some water over the loaf and bake it again, alternatively you can turn the stale bread into croutons, or blend it into bread crumbs.

If using whole wheat bread flour, increase the autolyze time up to 3 hours. The bran in the flour can disrupt the gluten when you are stretching and folding it. To help build your gluten up let it autolyze for longer. This step is not necessary for refined bread flour that has the bran removed from the flour.