100% Wholemeal Artisan Bread

Vegan, Whole Food Plant Based

Ingredients:

120 g sourdough starter

450 wholemeal flour

310 g lukewarm water

10 g salt

Instuctions:

1. Feed your sourdough starter before starting the bread dough. If your kitchen very warm (in summer), it may be enough to feed it 5-6 hours before, but at colder temperatures it might needs 10-12 hours. In my bread-making routine, I take out the sourdough in the morning and I feed it. I take out 50 g of sourdough from my jar and put it in a new and clean jar (I bake tortillas from the rest, this will be a new recipe). I add 100 g of wholemeal flour and 100 g of lukewarm water to the 50 g of sourdough. I just simply mix it. I cover the jar with a clean cotton napkin and leave it on the kitchen counter.

2. Afternoon, approx. 10 hours (it's okay if more) after feeding the sourdough I measure 120 g into a large bowl. To this I add the flour, the water and the salt. Then combine them.

3. I start to knead it so that it becomes a mass, I knead it until it is nice and lump-free.

4. When the dough is nice and lump-free, I start kneading, which is a mixing motion from the bottom up. I do this for at least 20 minutes (hard work by hand at first), until the dough is nice and smooth (gluten fibers are formed).

5. I let it rest for 30 minutes and after fold it.To complete a stretch and fold, dip you hands lightly in water (This will help the dough from sticking, but be careful not to incorporate much water). Pull out the edge of the dough from 4 sides one after the other and fold it on top of the dough. I do this three more times. After each time the dough rests for 30 minutes. With each fold, our dough will have more and more air bubbles, which we have to pay attention to later, so that we don't press them apart.

6. I shape the bread (I fold the 4 corners of the dough onto the top of the dough, then pull/slide the two edges back to the center and towards us, it gets a nice shape). Then I put it in the bread proofing basket (or in a bowl) and cover it with a clean tea towel.

7. It stays overnight in the fridge or if you put it in a warm place, it will be ready to bake after 1.5-2 hours. After 2 hours you can test the dough for proper proofing by lightly flouring one small section (while the dough is still in the proofing basket). Press your finger lightly into dough. A properly proofed dough should very slowly spring back and still leave a light indentation.)

8. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees and put in the empty baking dish as well (it can be an iron dish, or a glass dish, or an enamel dish with an oven proof lid).

9. When the oven and the dish are preheated, I place the bread on a piece of baking paper and if we want we can cut a nice pattern on the top of our bread and it can go into the hot, preheated pot. Put the lid on it as well. I bake for 25 minutes with the lid on. Then remove the lid and reducing the temperature to 200-210 degrees and bake for 20-25 minutes. If we lower the temperature, we get lighter bread.

10. Then transfer your perfect bread to a cooling rack and cool completely before slicing.