Flower Bud Sourdough

The name for this recipe derives from the bread's shape, there are no actual flower buds in there. A lot of fermentation is going on; there are two kinds of sourdough in the dough: rye as well as in a wheat in a roughly 2:1 relation and there is poolish also. That allows this recipe to have very few ingredients, basically only water, flour and salt. Slightly more effort than usual goes into shaping the bread which makes it look really nice.

Rye Sourdough

• 135g (4 3/4oz) whole grain rye flour
• 135ml (4 1/2oz) water
• 14g (1/2oz) rye sourdough starter

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until smooth. Cover airtight and let rest for 16-18 hours at room temperature.

Wheat Sourdough

• 90g (3 1/8oz) all purpose wheat flour
• 50ml (1 5/8oz) water
• 9g (1/4oz) wheat sourdough starter

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until smooth. Cover airtight and let rest for 16-18 hours at room temperature also.

Poolish

• 95g (3 3/8oz) medium ground or whole grain wheat flour
• 95ml (3 1/4oz) water
• 0.1g fresh wet yeast, if you don't have it on can't measure such a small amount, it'll probably work without.

Main Dough

• Rye sourdough
• Wheat sourdough
• Poolish
• 95g (3 3/8oz) bread flour
• 180g (6 3/8oz) light rye flour
• 90ml (3 oz) water
• 12g (3/8oz) salt
• 1 tsp diastatic malt powder
• vegetable oil to brush

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and knead with the dough hook for 5 minutes on low speed. Increase speed to 2 and knead for another 3 minutes.

Cover and let rest for 1 1/2 hours at room temperature. After 45 minutes use a spatula to fold the dough from the edges into the middle to form a ball.

Place the dough on a well floured surface, flour it and use a rolling pin to roll 3 edges of the dough out for 10cm (4 inches) in about 120° angles. Brush off any flour and brush some vegetable oil along the rolled out edges. Fold edges back in so they almost close the bread back up.

Place in a floured banetton with the seam down, cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 50 minutes at 90°F (32°C) - placing inside the oven with just the oven light on should provide around that temperature.

Preheat oven to 250°C (485°F).

Cover baking sheet with parchment paper and turn dough onto it (seam is now up). Place on middle rack of the oven, spray in a lot of water and bake for 10 minutes. Then open the oven door to let out the steam, close it and reduce temperature to 210°C (410°F). Bake with falling temperature for another 40 minutes. For a nice crispy crust open oven door a bit during the last 5 minutes.

Let cool on a cooling rack.

Original recipe (German language) in "Das Brotbackbuch" by Lutz Geißler, published by Ulmer Eugen Verlag.