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Cooking
Autumn Pumpkin Sourdough Bread with Walnuts and Sage
· 6 servings
Sourdough starter
First, prepare the sourdough starter in the bowl you'll use for mixing the dough. It needs to ferment for 12 hours in a warm spot. Combine all three ingredients and stir into a smooth mixture. Wrap the bowl in a plastic bag or cover it with a lid.
Sticky dough
After twelve hours (ideally start the starter in the evening and bake the next morning), add the remaining ingredients. Mix into a dough that's no longer sticky, then let it rest in the bowl for an hour.
Kneading
Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface. Stretch and knead it thoroughly with your hands. This transfers your warmth into the dough, pushes out unwanted air, and works the dough into a lovely, elastic mass. Once you feel it's ready, shape it and place it into a proofing basket.
Proofing in the basket
Dust the whole loaf lightly with potato starch or flour so it doesn't stick to the basket, then turn it into the proofing basket. Close the basket inside the same bag you used for the starter earlier – I use a medium-sized bin liner for this.
Room temperature or fridge
Now you can let the bread rise at room temperature for about two hours. These days I rely almost exclusively on a cold fridge proof instead – I leave the basket in the fridge for several hours.
Preheat the oven
Preheat the oven to the highest possible temperature, ideally 230–250 °C. Place a tray on the bottom of the oven, and put the baking tray you'll bake the bread on in the middle of the oven as well.
Loading the bread into the oven
Once the oven is thoroughly preheated, tip the risen loaf out onto a wooden board or another surface you'll use to slide the bread into the oven. Lay a sheet of baking paper on this board, then place the loaf on top.
Bake
Quickly open the preheated oven, pour a cup of water onto the tray at the bottom, and carefully slide the loaf on its baking paper onto the hot tray in the middle of the oven. Close the door and bake with steam at this temperature for 10 minutes.
Finish baking
After this time, open the oven, let the steam out, and lower the temperature to 180 °C. Bake at this temperature for a further 40 minutes. You can occasionally mist the bread with water from a spray bottle.
Let it cool
Take the baked bread out of the oven and let it cool on a wire rack. Ideally leave it for several hours, until it's completely cold.