Smoked Paprika and Sun-Dried Tomato Sourdough Bread

The sour of the bread combines with the smokiness of the paprika and the umami flavour from the sun-dried tomatoes to make this loaf of bread incredibly delicious. If you are looking to make your sourdough bread a little more interesting, then this is for you! 

Makes: 1 loaf
Preparation time: 1 day
Cooking time: 50 minutes


Ingredients: 

• Flour 500 g ( Very strong white)
• Water  350 g ( 70% of water respect to the flour, if you are a beginner and you are not enough confident to handle a very wet dough simply reduce the water) 
• Salt 10 g
• Sourdough starter 150 g
• Smoked Paprika 15 g
• Tomato paste 30 g
• Sun dried Tomato roughly chopped 60 g 

Method:

Mixing the first 3 ingredients

• In a bowl add the warm water, the sourdough culture and the tomato paste, mix well until all the sourdough culture and the tomato paste is well dissolve. 
• at this point add (in the same bowl) all the flour, the smoked paprika and the sundried tomatoes chopped. With a scraper mix well for 5 min, until there are no more bits of dry flour and it forms a very shaggy dough
• transfer the dough on a work surface and start kneading the dough with the palms of your hands - be energetic and a little fast with your kneading movement. The slower is your kneading movement the stickier your dough will be on the table. Help your self with the scraper if you need! Knead for another 6 - 7 min
• Once the dough it's nice kneaded and elastic then make a ball shape, again help yourself with a scraper
• Transfer the dough in a plastic container/bowl and cover. Let it rest for 1 hour

 Adding the salt

• Place 25 grams of warm water in a glass and add the salt - stir well to make sure the salt dissolves 
• Add the saltwater in the dough and work the liquid and salt into the dough by giving the dough few folds. The dough will feel quite wet and loose at this point. (don't panic!).

     Folding the dough

• To fold the dough, grab the dough at one side, lift it up, and fold it over on top of itself. Fold the dough four/five times, moving clockwise from the top of the bowl. After the first fold adding the salt let the dough rest 45 minutes then repeat.
• Do this folding process a total of 4 times, every 45 min.  The dough will start out very loose, but will gradually become tighter as you continue folding. Keep the dough always inside the bowl and make sure you keep it cover after each folding. 

     Proving and Fermentation:

• After finish all the folding leave the dough (still inside the bowl) at room temperature for 8 hours.
• After the 8 hours at room temperature move the dough in the fridge for another 8 hours (this will improve the fermentation of the dough and the aroma of the final  bread) 

      Prepare the proofing basket

• Just before taking the dough out from the fridge prepare the proofing basket!
• Line a bread proofing baskets or a clean mixing bowls with clean kitchen towels inside. Dust them heavily with flour, rubbing the flour into the cloth on the bottom and up the sides with your fingers. Use more flour than you think you'll need! 

     Shaping the dough​  

• Take the dough out from the fridge and transfer it on your work surface ( be gentle to avoid deflating the dough) 
• Shape it into a round by slipping your pastry scraper under the edge of the dough and then scraping it around curve of the dough, like turning left when driving. Do this a few times to build the surface tension in the dough (flour or add a little oil in your pastry scraper as needed to keep it from sticking to the dough)
• If it's not quite a round, cup your palms around the dough and rotate it against the counter to shape it up. 
• Once you got a nice round shape, dust the dough with flour all around and transfer it to the proofing basket upside down, so the seams from shaping are on top ( basically the bottom of the dough when is on the work surface it will be the top once transfer on the proofing basket) 

 
     Let it rise!​

• Cover the proofing basket with a clean plastic bag and let the dough rise for 2-3 hours at room temperature or until almost double in size before baking it.
• Or, for slow rise the dough place it in the fridge overnight for another 8 hours. If rising overnight in the fridge , bake the loaf straight from the fridge; you do not need to warm the dough before baking.

     Let's bake it! 

• ​Turn the oven on at 230 C° and place the dutch oven or any other heavy-bottomed pot with lid in the oven 
• Once the oven reach the temperature your pot or dutch oven will be very hot so carefully take it out (but keep the lid on) 
• Tip the loaf on top of a piece of parchment paper and using  a lame or sharp knife quickly score the surface of the loaves. Try to score at a slight angle, so you're cutting almost parallel to the surface of the loaf; this gives the loaves the distinctive "shelf" along the score line
• Transfer the dough inside the dutch oven , close with the lid and bake for 25 min 
• After 25 min take the lid off and keep baking the bread for a further 25 min at 190 C° or until the crust is nice golden and caramelised ( don't be scared to have some colour on your bread, this is where a lot of the flavor and texture of the crust comes in)

Let it cool!

• Transfer the bread on a cooling rack and let it cool completely, for at least 1- 2 hour. This will improve the aroma and the flavour of your bread as the crumb is still cooking. Enjoy!