Lussekatter

For more on the history of these buns see here.

Ingredients

Makes 16 pieces

Ingredient	Weight (g)
Strong white bread flour (plain or gluten-free will do)	500
Milk / mylk	250
Butter / margarine	60
Caster sugar	40
Instant yeast	7
Salt	10
Saffron	0.5g (or 1 teaspoon)
Cardamon (optional)	1 teaspoon (or 6 pods)
Raisins / currants	A handful (or 32 to be precise)
Eggs	2 large (or 60g of vegetable oil) plus extra for glazing

Method

• Melt the butter in a small saucepan add the milk and bring to just below boiling
• Take off the heat and add the saffron, you can grind it if you like to give a more intense flavour and colour
• Add the flour, sugar, yeast, salt, eggs and optional cardamon to a large mixing bowl
• Once the milk mixture has cooled to body heat, add it to the mixing bowl
• Bring together then knead until smooth and elastic
• Cover the bowl and leave it in a warm place (25 degrees Celsius) for around an hour till doubled in size
• Optionally soak a handful of raisins in some spirit
• Put the oven on to preheat to 180 degrees Celsius
• Line two baking trays with parchment (or simply grease them)
• Divide the dough into 60g pieces
• Roll into sausages about 30cm long
• Coil into S-shapes and place on baking tray
• Push raisins deeply into the dough
• Leave to rise for around ten minutes till slightly puffy
• Brush with egg
• Bake for 12-15 minutes till golden
• Leave to cool on a wire rack under a tea-towel to stop them drying out

Sourdough Recipe for a Single Loaf

Ingredients

	Ingredient	Weight (g)	Baker's percentage
Levain build	100% hydration starter	100
	Strong white flour	150
	Cold tap water	150
Final dough	Strong white flour	350
	Tap water 30°C	150
	Salt	10
	Levain	400
Overall formula	Strong white bread flour	550	100%
	Water	350	64%
	Salt	10	2%

This is a version of my standard sourdough recipe, but scaled to only make a single large loaf. The method is the same, only the quantities are different, with a slight adjustment to the amount of starter included to reflect how I normally make it these days.

Levain build

The night before you plan to bake, mix 100g of starter with 150g bread flour and 150g cold tap water in a large bowl. Cover and leave at room temperature for 10-12 hours.

Flour, water and starter

Mix all the ingredients together

Cover and leave for 10-12 hours

Mixing the main dough

The following day your mixture should be nice and bubbly, if not then there's no point in proceeding as your bread won't rise.  Maybe it's too cold or your starter just isn't very active, put it somewhere warmer (up to 25 degrees Celsius) and leave it for longer till it does get bubbly.

Once it is all bubbly add 350g of strong bread flour, 150g of water at around 30 degrees Celsius and 10g of salt. Mix it all together until there are no dry bits then turn it out onto your un-floured work surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Form into a ball and return to your lightly floured bowl. Cover the bowl and place it in a warm place (around 25 degrees Celsius) until doubled in size. This doubling could take anywhere between 2.5 and 4 hours. Whilst it's rising give the dough two letter folds, one every 50 minutes or so.

Add flour water and salt to the levain

After kneading, form into a ball and return to the lightly floured bowl

Cover and leave to prove in a warm place for 2.5 to 4 hours until doubled in volume.
Letter-fold twice during this time

Form into a ball and put down to prove (upside-down) in a well-floured bowl.
Leave covered in a warm place for another 2.5 to 4 hours

About an hour before your dough is finished proving pre-heat your oven to 250 degrees Celsius

Wait till slightly less than doubled

Turn out onto a floured baking tray.
Slice a pattern in the top using a sharp knife

Bake at 250 degrees Celsius, with steam for ten minutes.
Reduce to 220 degrees and bake for another 10-25 minutes.
When done the base should sound hollow when tapped.
Cool on a wire rack.

Sourdough foibles

60% hydration

60% hydration crumb

For a while I've had a standard sourdough recipe that's been pretty reliable that I can bake with a flexible schedule without having to think about it too much.  With the flour availability issues of late, and having more time to bake, I bought a sixteen kilogram bag of Finest Bakers White No.1 Flour from the renown Shipton Mill.  I thought I'd try out the flour with my trusted recipe which has a hydration of about 65%, so nothing too crazy.  The results were disappointing, the dough turning out much slacker, more extensible with less strength, and hence harder to shape, and the final loaf was a bit flat.  The dough also seemed to ferment much faster than usual but temperatures were unusually high (the ambient temperature was around 20 degrees Celsius during the levain build).

65% hydration, boule on the right is a bit flat

It felt like the dough was generally a bit too wet, which I found surprising, but I thought I'd try reducing the hydration as low as 60% to see what happened. The results were interesting and I was much happier with them than the original recipe.  Here's the amended recipe:

Ingredients

Makes two large loaves.

10% pre-fermented flour

	Ingredient	Weight (g)	Baker's percentage
Levain build	100% hydration rye starter	200	66%
	Strong white flour	300	100%
	Cold tap water	300	100%
Final dough	Strong white flour	700
	Tap water 30°C	250
	Salt	17
	Levain	800
Overall formula	Strong white bread flour	1000	90%
	Whole rye flour (from starter)	100	10%
	Water	650	60%
	Salt	17	1.5%

Method

• To build the levain, in a large bowl, mix together the starter, flour and water until evenly incorporated
• Cover the bowl and leave to rest for around eight and a half hours at about 22°C
• Add the fresh flour, water and salt to the levain build and mix together till there are no pockets of dry flour
• Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic
• Form into a ball, return the dough to its lightly-floured bowl and cover
• Leave to prove for 45 minutes at 25°C
• Letter-fold the dough, return it to the bowl and cover it
• Leave to prove for another 45 minutes at 25°C
• Turn the dough out onto a lightly-floured work-surface and divide it in two
• Pre-shape the two portions of dough into balls and leave to rest on the bench (covered) for around 15 minutes
• Shape the loaves as batards using the cinching method
• Leave them to prove in oval bannetons for an hour and a half at 23°C
• Cut them with a razor blade, on a slight curve to one side of the loaf, and bake them on a stone in a fan-oven pre-heated to 250°C with some boiling water on tray at the bottom of the oven
• After loading the loaves into the oven, lower the temperature to 220°C to prevent scorching
• After 10 minutes remove the water-tray and rotate the loaves in the oven to given an even colour
• Bake them for a further 15 minutes, remove them from the oven and leave them to cool on a wire rack

Things to note

I've never had this sourdough recipe prove so rapidly, I think it must be a combination of the flour the warm weather and my starter that made it behave that way.  Also I was surprised that such dry dough yielded good results, but don't expect the same to hold true for you as every flour is different. The biggest lesson for me was that you can't just follow the timings or even ratios for a known recipe, something as simple as changing flour brand can make a big difference. I wouldn't have ended up at this point without methodically working through a couple of failed attempts at higher hydrations.

N.B. if you want more detail on the techniques involved in the method, they're more fully described in the original standard sourdough recipe

Yeasted white dough

Batard and boule

Crumb

Ingredients

Makes two large loaves:

• 1000g strong white bread flour
• 700g water 30 degrees Celsius
• 20g salt
• 4g dried active yeast

Method

• Add all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix together until they are incorporated
• Knead the dough until it becomes smooth and elastic
• Shape it into a ball and place it back into the bowl (lightly floured)
• Leave to prove for 5 hours at around 25 degrees Celsius
• Letter-fold the dough every 45 minutes for the first 2'15" (see here for description of folding)
• Gently turn the dough out onto a lightly-floured work surface
• Divide it in two and lightly shape into balls
• Leave covered for a few minutes for it to relax whilst you flour your couche or bread basket
• Shape into boules or batards and place into your floured baskets / couche
• Preheat your oven, containing your Dutch-ovens, to 250 degrees Celsius
• Be super careful - it's very easy to give yourself a nasty burn. Clear plenty of space, place oven mitts on top of hot items to remind yourself and don't get distracted
• Leave your loaves to prove for between one hour and one hour fifteen minutes at 25 degrees Celsius
• Turn your loaves out onto a floured surface and cut a pattern in the top with a sharp knife
• Gently transfer your proven loaves to your Dutch-ovens and bake for 30 minutes covered, and another 5-10 minutes uncovered to brown them off
• Leave to cool

Rum-soaked prune and cardamon bread

Finished article

Crumb

After the first prove

Dividing

Shaping

This recipe is a combination of the one from Richard Bertinet's book Dough and the method from Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast.

Makes 2 large loaves.

Ingredients

• 400g strong wholewheat flour
• 600g strong white bread flour
• 800g water at around 30 degrees Celsius
• 20g salt
• 4g instant dried yeast
• 200g rum-soaked prunes
• 1/2 teaspoon of fresh-ground cardamon

Method

• Soak the prunes overnight in a dark rum.
• Put the prunes and cardamon to one side, and mix the remaining ingredients together till roughly combined (around 3 minutes on the slowest speed if using a mixer).
• Increase the speed on your mixer to the second slowest setting and mix for another 6 minutes.  The dough will still be quite wet and loose, but will have some discernible strength.
• Add the cardamon and prunes, but don't take too much liquid across with the fruit, and mix on the slowest speed until just distributed throughout the dough.
• Form the dough into a ball and place in a lightly-floured, covered bowl to prove.
• Prove for five hours at 25 degrees Celsius, giving it four folds, one every 45 minutes, to improve the dough strength.
• Divide and shape the dough into two balls.
• Place in well-floured proving baskets, cover and refrigerate overnight.
• In the morning preheat a Dutch-oven to 250 degrees Celsius for a good hour.
• TAKING GREAT CARE NOT TO BURN YOURSELF bake the loaves sequentially straight from the fridge, cutting your desired pattern in the top.
• Bake covered for 30 minutes, take the lid off and bake for around another 10 minutes to colour the loaf.
• Leave on a wire rack to cool.

Sesame and sunflower seed loaf recipe

Makes one large loaf

Ingredients

• 500g strong white bread flour
• 300g water (at approximately 30 degrees celsius)
• 50g sunflower oil
• 10g salt
• 7g dried instant yeast
• 50g sunflower seeds
• 50g sesame seeds
• 1.5 teaspoons honey
• 1 teaspoon of sesame oil

Weigh the ingredients and mix them altogether - being careful not to put the yeast in direct contact with salt as it will kill it.
You should end up with a loose, sticky dough.
Turn it out onto your clean work-surface DON'T ADD ANY FLOUR.
You'll find this dough hard to knead using a normal technique so you might want to try something like this:
http://youtu.be/PvdtUR-XTG0

If that looks too tricky you can use a more conventional kneading technique such as:

https://www.bbc.com/food/techniques/kneading

It's the high water content that gives you a light fluffy loaf - which is why it's important not to be tempted to add any flour to make it less sticky.
As you work the dough though it will naturally get smoother and less sticky until it no longer sticks to the work-surface, this should take less than 10 minutes (and is quite good exercise).
Cover your work surface with a very light dusting of flour and shape your dough into a ball.
Place it in a lightly-floured bowl, cover it and leave it for one hour at about 25-30 degrees celsius).

After about an hour your dough should have roughly doubled in volume.
Take it out of its bowl and shape it, see here https://www.thekitchn.com/basic-techniques-how-to-shape-97063
Cover it so it doesn't dry-out and leave it for another hour at 25-30 degrees celsius to double in size again.

In the meantime get your oven good and hot (250 degrees celsius) if you have a baking stone put that in the oven to get warm, if not then a thick baking tray will do.

Slice a nice simple pattern on the top using a sharp knife.

Place your loaf in the oven.
If you have a clean spray gun (as you use for watering plants) you can spray some water in the oven (the steam helps it rise), or simply put half a cup of hot water in a tray in the bottom of the oven.

Shut the oven door and don't be tempted to keep opening it.
After five minutes turn the heat down to 220 degrees celsius.
Leave it to bake for another 25 minutes (making a total of 30).
You can tell the loaf is done if when you take it from the oven and remove it from the tin, the bottom sounds hollow when you tap it.
If not then put it back in for another five minutes – you may want to take it out of the tin for the last five minutes so that the sides of the loaf crisp up a little.