barley and lemon sourdough

i generally make about one sourdough loaf a week unless i have guests and i'd been thinking about adding barley to this week's loaf since i enjoyed it so much in a soup i'd made a while ago..i added lemon because i felt it needed an acid to balance out the richness of the other ingredients and because lemon barley water has such a lovely flavour..

barley and lemon sourdough

tea with hazel

ingredients levain

1 tablespoon (tbs) active starter

100 gms bread flour

125 gms filtered water

ingredients dough

225 g levain

300 gms white wheat flour

50 gms rice flour 

50 gms oat flour (i processed oat flakes until they were very fine)

100 gms cooked barley

1 tbs barley malt extract (i used saunders' barley malt extract)

1 1/2 tbs salt (i crush murray river salt flakes)

finely grated rind of 1 large lemon

filtered water

method levain

~ mix the levain ingredients, cover, and leave until very active (i refrigerated mine overnight, took it out in the morning, and it was ready to use by midday)

method dough

~ in the bowl of a stand mixer add flours, barley, malt extract and levain and mix with enough water to make a shaggy dough

~ autolyse for 45 minutes

~ add salt and lemon, mix briefly, rest for 15 minutes 

~ mix briefly again, remove the bowl from the stand mixer, cover with oiled cling film or a damp tea towel and leave until well risen

~ remove the dough to a flour dusted bench and repeat two gentle stretch and fold cycles with 15 minute rest intervals

~ shape the dough and rest until a finger pressed into the dough leaves an impression

~ slash and bake with steam at 250 deg c (conventional setting) for 30 minutes, reduce heat to 195 deg c and cook for a further 15-20 minutes

comments:

~ visually this loaf doesn't look very different to many other loaves that i've made but texture and flavour wise is a different story altogether..the crust is quite dense and crunchy and the crumb is open and soft but with plenty of body..even though i knew i'd added the lemon to the dough it came as a bit of a surprise when i first tasted it but, for me, it works..so far, of all the bread i've made, this is my favourite 

~ i wanted to add barley flakes to the loaf but i couldn't find any locally..next time!

roasted fennel and potato soup garnished with fennel leaves
and chilli oil

i think soup and bread is a perfect winter's meal..what do you think?

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