Sourdough onion bread including fried onions

fresh baked onion artisan bread loaf

Something that I craved for since a long time is onion bread. I remember when I was young the organic bread I was craving for was the onion bread and bacon bread. But this is such a long time ago. So, of course, when I saw the recipe for this artisan bread I could not wait for my last bread to finish so I could make this onion bread from the Ploetzblog. And it was a full success indeed. I mean i could not expect less from Lutz, the author of the Poetzblog, a German blog purely dedicated for banking bread. He also regularly organizes bread making courses, something that  i will most likely never be able to attempt. But at least i can try to bake some of his homemade bread recipes in order to get better with my bread making skills every time. Anyhow, here goes the translation of the recipe for this mouthwatering artisanal bread.

Sourdough

• 150 g rye flour
• 150 g water
• 15 g of rye sourdough starter

mix them well and let them rest for 14 - 18 hours

Sponge

• 50 g wheat flour
• 50 g water
• 1.4 g fresh yeast / 0.2 g dried yeast

mix them well and let them rest for 14 - 18 hours

Scald

• 100 g oat flakes
• 100 g water
• 10 g salt

Mix everything well and let it rest for at least 8 hours in the fridge

Onions

• 3 – 5 big onions
• 2 Table spoons of honey

Dice the onions and fry them in olive oil on low heat until they are golden brown. The add the honey and continue to brown on low heat. Take it off and let it cool down. only use the onions when they are cool.

Main dough

• Sourdough
• Sponge
• Scald
• 50 g rye flour
• 150 g wheat flour
• 5 g fresh yeast / 0.7 g dried yeast
• 25 g virgine olive oil
• 1 Table spoon of honey

Mix everything well together; knead the dough for five minutes. Now let the dough rest for 60 minutes. We now form the bread. If you are not sure how to form / shape bread, please follow my link on "bread baking basics + know how". This is another one of my free formed bread and so, it has to rest in a form in order to not run flat on you. So normally you would put in a bread fermentation basket it you have one. This is a basket that bakers will let their breads ferment in for a while to get in form while fermenting. As I don't have a special basket for this, I am just taking a normal high bowl (I am still using the same on that I used when I made this bread) with a round bottom that gives my bread more or less the form that I desire for the bread. I flour the bowl well before I add the dough, this way later it won't stick to it. Now I add the formed dough bottom side up into the bowl. Let the bread ferment another 60 minutes.

Once the breads have been fermented, I drop them upside down from their bread baskets on my permanent Teflon baking foil on which I already sprinkled a bed of flour. Also sprinkle a layer of flour on top of the bread before putting in the oven. The oven should be pre heated on 250°C. Now pour a cup of hot water in the oven (if you do not have this inbuilt steaming program in your oven at home), pop the bread in the oven and also place a cup of water on the floor of the oven to give some additional steam later on. Quickly close the door so the hot steam will be caught within the oven. Having all that steam in the oven is, like mentioned many times before, extremely important for a scrumptious crust and a great consistency of the bread.

Bake the breads for 10 minutes like this until it reached the right brown color that you are looking for in a bread crust, then open up the door, let the steam out, lower the heat on 200°C and continue to bake the bread for another 40 - 45 minutes. Now switch off the heat, keep the door open and let the bread cool down slowly. I always spray a bit of water on top of the fresh loaf when it's still hot. It gives a nice and shiny surface the fresh baked crust.

Like always, I will try to post this self made bread to the yeast spotting webpage like every time I am baking one as I thing this awesome blog event always deserves my support