Buure Brot - swiss farmer wheat based sourdough bread

Fresh baked farmers bread from the oven

When I recently found this artisan bread recipe, I could not resist. It sounded doable and besides the fact that I could not find the required special flour ("Ruch" flour) I was just changing it with the normal available wheat flour and it worked fine. Another problem here is to get unsweetened yoghurt. So I took sweet yoghurt that is available here and left out the honey to equalize everything. It worked more or less. Also, normally I will let the sponge and the sourdough get ripe at room temperature. But now it gotten pretty cold here in the south of China. With an average of 13 - 20 degrees Celsius, it's simply too cold. So i was putting everything in my oven and only switched on the light. I read this trick somewhere. It worked out fine for me. Inside the oven I created a favorable ambiance with 26 degrees Celsius that just worked out fine for me. Anyhow, here is my organic bread recipe:


Sponge:

• 100 g. wheat flour
• 60 g water 
• 1 g fresh yeast (or 0.3 g dried yeast)
• 2 g salt

mix everything well and leave it at room temperature (25 degrees Celsius) for 16 hours


sourdough:

• 100 g rye flour
• 80 g water
• 12 g sourdough starter

mix everything well and let it work for about 14 - 16 hours

Main dough: 

• Sponge
• Sourdough
• 250 g wheat flour
• 100 g rye flour
• 250 g yogurth (if you have unsweetened yoghurt, please add 10 g honey to the main dough)
• 6 g fresh yeast or 1 g dried yeast
• 9 g salt

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 wet the bowl 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. Once the dough is added, I also wet the top of the dough (which means the bottom of the bread) one more time so it won't get a hard crust on top. Let the bread ferment another 40 - 60 minutes.

Once the breads have been fermented, I drop them upside down from their bread baskets on my permanent teflon bakingfoil on which I already sprinkled a bed of flour. I wet the top of the bread one more time and sprinkle some sesame grains over the bread before it goes 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 your homemade bread for 15 minutes like this, then open up the door, let the steam out, lower the heat on 180°C and continue to bake the bread for another 30 - 40 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.

Consumption tips: This self made bread had an extremely crispy crust when I baked it and because it is heavy on the wheat, i just cut it and had a slice when it was still a bit warm, the best way to eat fresh artisanal bread that is wheat based (for rye based bread, see my comments over there...)

Fresh baked farmers bread from the oven - cut slices