Natural Sourdough White Loaf ❤️ Teacher Ai He Ziyou's Recipe

🍞 Ingredients: (One 450g Pullman loaf pan)

Levain: Sourdough starter 20g, water 40g, bread flour 60g

Main dough: Bread flour 230g, sugar 24g, salt 5g, milk powder 12g, water 130g, butter 24g.

🍞 Instructions:

1️⃣ Mix the levain ingredients until smooth and let ferment at room temperature for 12 hours.

2️⃣ Combine the fermented levain from Step 1 with all main dough ingredients except the butter and knead until it pulls a thick membrane. Add the butter and continue kneading to the full windowpane stage where it pulls a thin, translucent membrane. Shape into a tight ball, cover, and let it bulk ferment (first proof).

3️⃣ Once doubled in size, gently degas the large air bubbles, divide into 2 equal portions, shape into balls, and give them a 20-minute bench rest.

4️⃣ Roll out, coil, and place into the loaf pan. Proof in a warm, humid spot until the pan is 80% full.

5️⃣ Bake at 190°C on the lower-middle rack for about 40 minutes.

The original recipe is shown in Picture 4.

(I made one small tweak: my sourdough starter is fed with whole wheat flour, and I also used whole wheat flour to build the levain.)

❤️ Baker's Tip:

Because this loaf relies entirely on wild sourdough starter, fermentation takes much longer than with commercial instant yeast, so give it plenty of patience ❤️