Discovering Sourdough

I have a dear friend who is fighting cancer. The chemo treatments leave her unable to eat much but she loves eating my sourdough bread. So I have formulated this bread just for her. It is the white counterpart to Pink Wig bread which was also formulated for a woman fighting cancer (it is a whole wheat version). It is gratifying for me to know that people with compromised systems can still eat and digest sourdough. I think that shows how healthy a fermented food like sourdough is.

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Blonde Wig Sourdough – a fine grained soft crumb sourdough 

Makes 3 lb 4 oz dough @ 68% hydration

Mix together in a large mixing bowl:

•  11 oz/312g ripe motherdough @ 60% hydration
• 8 oz/226g  well fed ripe sourdough starter @ 100% hydration
• 11 oz/312g lukewarm water
• 2 oz/56g canned milk or heavy cream milk, in the U.S. this is called half and half (if you use real milk, scald and cool before using)
• .6 oz/17g sea salt
• 2 oz/56g whole wheat flour -freshly ground is best
• 18 oz/510g bread flour

1. Add the two starters, the water, milk and salt to a large mixing bowl.
2. Pull apart the motherdough into pieces and stir all of the ingredients together.
3. Add the whole wheat flour and the bread flour and mix with your hands until you have a dough ball. Let the dough rest, covered.
4. 
5. Fold the dough three times over the next six hours of fermentation time. I started at 3:00 pm and fermented until 9:00 pm.
6. Then I divided the dough into two pieces around 1 lb 11 oz each and shaped into boules.
7. I did the preshape and then final shaping twenty minutes later.
8. I placed the boules into the 8 ” round bannetons which were dusted with white flour.
9. I then covered the dough, banneton and all with a plastic bag and refrigerated overnight.
10. Next morning I took out the loaves staggered 30 minutes apart and put them into my Brod and Taylor proofer at 85F degrees. They took approximately three hours to finish proofing.
11. 
12. I preheated my oven with baking stone for one hour at 450F degrees. Five minutes before baking, I placed a large stainless bowl inside to preheat and use as a cover.
13. Using a peel, place the slashed dough into the oven on the hot stone, place a stainless large bowl upside down over the bread and bake for 20 minutes (Don’t spray with water if you want nice flour lines on your crust).
14. 
15. I slashed using the letter “S” which is the first initial of my friend’s name.
16. After the 20 minutes is up, remove bowl carefully and allow the dough to brown and bake 15 minutes more.
17. Cool, slice, eat with lots of fresh butter and…
18. Share a loaf with someone who is ill.