Rye Sourdough English Muffins

Another recipe to make use of the "discarded" sourdough starter.

Ingredients
120g starter that has been stored in the fridge (mine is a 100% hydration rye starter)
200ml milk
344g all purpose/plain flour
1 TBSP sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
Semolina or cornmeal, for dusting

Method
Mix starter, flour and milk in a large container. Mix to combine, cover with plastic wrap, and leave out for 8 hours or overnight.

Starter, flour and milk mixed and left overnight in room temperature

Result overnight. Bubbles are obvious and doubled in height

After the overnight rest, add sugar, salt and baking soda and mix well. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 4-5 minutes.

Roll out to 2 cm height and cut with a biscuit cutter into rounds. You can re-roll the scraps, but you may need to let the dough rest before cutting more muffins from them. Place muffins on a piece of parchment dusted with semolina and let rest for 45 minutes.

Cut into rounds and resting on semolina

Spray frying pan lightly with spray oil. Cook muffins for about 6-8 minutes on each side using low to medium heat, or until browned on the top and bottom and cooked through. Don't use too high heat or the top and bottom will be too brown and the middle remains uncooked.

In a frying pain, lightly coated with oil

Waiting to be eaten

Sourdough rye and whole wheat crackers

When you are growing your sourdough starter, you need to discard half of it and feed the leftover with more flour and water. So what to do with all the discarded sourdough starter when you are growing your sourdough? Do you throw it away? It's perfectly edible flour that has been fermented. I keep a big bottle of it in the fridge to stop it from fermenting further.


Found this recipe at The Fresh Loaf.

50g whole wheat flour
20ml coconut oil
0.9g salt
100g discarded sourdough starter at 100% hydration (50g flour/50g water)


Mix the whole wheat flour with salt, then mix in the coconut oil. Add in the sourdough starter and mix well. Leave it overnight until risen in a warm place. My house is around 30C all year round.

All ingredients mixed

Fermented overnight and risen. See the bubbles.

The next day, take out the dough and roll it out as thin as possible and evenly with a rolling pin. Then cut up the thin dough into squares using a pizza cutter. I use a "special" rolling pin to control the thickness I want. :)

Rolled as thinly and evenly as possible and cut.

Special rolling pin that can control the thickness of the dough

Bake it in the oven at temperature of 175C convection mode. Rotate your tray at around 7 to 8 minutes if your oven heat is not even. As mine is very thin, it is done in 14 minutes. So, monitor it closely to prevent the crackers from being burnt. Noticed the edges are darker than the middle.

The crackers will shrink once they are done

Keep in airtight container to maintain the freshness and crisp.

Malted Sourdough Bread

I bought some malt extract from a health food store and it has been sitting in the fridge and I don't really use a lot of it, so I decided to look for a bread recipe that uses it.

Everyday Malted Brown Bread Recipe (from here)

700g brown or wholemeal bread flour
200g white bread flour
80g malt extract
80ml sunflower or vegetable oil
4 tsp dried active yeast
30g demerara or light brown sugar
3tsp maldon sea salt, crushed (if you use regular table salt you will need to add more - try 4tsp)
540ml water

I did a few changes to the original recipe. The above recipe uses yeast but I am more keen to use my rye sourdough starter. I also halved the recipe to make a smaller loaf. As I don't have brown or wholemeal bread flour, I used normal bread flour and whole wheat flour instead.

Malted Sourdough Bread Recipe

340g bread flour
100g whole wheat flour (to be used in the levain)
260ml water (divided 100ml + 160ml)
20g sourdough starter (100% hydration = 10g rye + 10ml water)
40g malt extract
40ml vegetable oil
15g light brown sugar
9g salt (Baker's percent: 2%)

Total flour = 450g (including the flour in the starter)
Total water = 270ml (including the water in the starter)
Hydration = 60% (270/450*100)

Levain
Add 100g whole wheat flour and 100ml water to 20g rye sourdough starter. Mix well and ferment for 12 to 16 hours.

My sourdough starter is normally in the fridge hibernating if I am not baking. A few days before using it, I will take it out of the fridge and feed it daily to wake it up and strengthen it. Sourdough starters are different from commercial yeast. Because it is natural, it tends to take a longer time for the bread to ferment and proof unlike using those hyperactive commercial yeast. There are some advantages of eating sourdough bread which you can spend some time reading if you are interested.

Levain created with sourdough starter

I left mine for 21 hours due to work commitments. As seen below, the levain is now very bubbly and has raised in height. If you give the sourdough a sniff, you can detect traces of fruity smell with some sourish tang as well.

Doubled in height and bubbly

Lots of bubbles

Main Dough
Using a mixing bowl, mix the levain with the rest of the water (160ml) to dissolve it. Add in all the other ingredients except the salt and mix well. Leave it covered to autolyse for 30 to 60 mins.

After that, add in the salt and mix well and knead the dough.

Shaggy mass after adding all the ingredients

You can knead the dough using a stand mixer or by hand until gluten is developed. Let it rest in a covered bowl for 2 hours to bulk ferment at room temperature.

Dough that has been knead and left to rest

After 2 hours, shape the dough into a boule and placed it in a oiled and floured bowl. I floured the bowl with semolina which is why it looked so grainy. You can use corn meal or rice flour as well to prevent sticking. Cover it with cling film and put it in the fridge overnight. That will allow slower fermentation and proofing which will result in nicer flavours in the bread.

Dough is shaped and placed seam-side up in a oiled and floured bowl

The next day, take it out and leave it at room temperature until the dough has proofed enough for baking. If your bread proofed overnight in the fridge and is ready to bake, you can bake it straight from the oven, there is no need to wait for the dough to come to room temperature. You can score the dough to help get a better/more even rise in the oven.

Preheat the oven to 210C, transfer the dough to a baking sheet/stone and bake for 30 mins. You can use steam for the initial 15 minutes.

The end result - Malted Sourdough Bread

I could have baked the bread at 230C instead of 210C, that might result in a better rise. Also, maybe increase the hydration of the dough to 65% instead of just 60%.

If I were to use this recipe again, I would replace the water with Guinness and make a Malted Sourdough Guinness Bread. :)