Since I was a kid, I have heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
Well, If it is so important, we better make sure that we eat only the best.
And what can be better than a slice of sourdough bread, baked with love and passion?
Therefore, I would like to introduce my sourdough breakfast bread to you.
I have used three types of flour for this bread, wheat, a very coarse rye flour, and Spelt flour.
If you don’t like a super sour, brick-like 100% rye bread for breakfast, this is the bread for you.
Nothing wrong with 100% rye bread. I like it a lot. But it has not always been like that, so I can understand if some people are somewhat hesitant about that kind of bread.
This sourdough breakfast bread combines the great baking qualities of wheat with the superior taste from Spelt and rye.
And if you want it sour, you can just let it ferment overnight in the refrigerator.
With some homemade sour cream butter, you will have a breakfast worthy of a king. You won’t need any other topping.
I usually bake many of these bread in small sizes and put them in the freezer. Then I can take out one loaf and eat all or most of it before it becomes stale.
PREPARING THE DOUGH
Day one
I took one tablespoon from my mature wheat starter and mixed it with water and wheat flour to a Biga and let it ferment overnight.
Day two
The next day I followed my usual routines when I prepared the dough. That means I mixed all ingredients, except salt, and let it rest for an hour. After that, I added salt and performed a set of stretch an fold every half an hour, five sessions in total.
Normally you can feel that the dough has developed gluten after that first hour of rest. That feeling is not as profound with this dough, but after a couple of hours of bulk fermentation and some stretch an folds, you will start to feel some elasticity.
Why is it so?
Well, there is quite a lot of rye and Spelt in this dough, and both of them have quite poor baking qualities compared to wheat. But what you will lose in baking quality, you will gain in taste.
BULK FERMENTATION
Those of you that have followed this blog know by now that I always try to let the dough ferment at a temperature of about 78ºF/25ºC.
This bread is no exception.
The fermentation time was about 5 hours. But how do you know that the bulk fermentation is ready? I don’t have any straight answer to that. I use to end the bulk fermentation when the dough has risen noticeably and got a smooth surface, perhaps with some bubbles on top. It’s a good sign if you shake the bowl and the dough jiggles. It’s hard to describe. I suppose this is one of those things about baking you have to learn through experience.
SHAPING
Dump out the dough on a lightly floured working surface. Divide it into two pieces with a bench knife.
I decided to shape batards. Now, there are probably as many ways to shape a batard that there are bakers. I use this method most of the time.
Place the loaves in floured bannetons.
FINAL RISE
How long shall the dough proof? How long is a rope? An impossible question to answer, isn’t it? It’s just as hard to give a straight answer about proofing time for the final rise. Observe and touch the dough instead of looking a the clock.
The finger poke test is a good indicator if the proofing is ready or not.
You make a little imprint on the top of the loaf by pressing your finger on it.
If the imprint springs back and fills up quickly, the loaf is probably under-proofed.
If the imprint springs back partly, the loaf is ready to be baked.
But If the imprint doesn’t recover at all, you probably have an over-proofed loaf.
BAKING
Preheat the oven to 480ºF / 250ºC
Turn out the dough gently on a piece of parchment paper. Score it as desired and load it into the oven, preferably on a baking stone and add steam. The easiest way is to pour water on a preheated baking sheet under the baking stone. Never pour water directly onto the bottom of your oven. It may crack if you are unlucky. A dutch oven or combo cooker works great as well. Open the oven lid and let out the steam after 15-20 minutes. Bake for an additional 15 to 20 minutes.
This sourdough breakfast bread has a nice, rather thick, and chewy crust with a lot of taste. If you want a more soft crust, I recommend that you don’t bake it as dark as I do.
Not everybody wants to perform cheek exercises in the morning.
I don’t want a very open crumb in my breakfast sandwich, but it should not be dense. I think this bread meets those requirements pretty well.
It will help you to get a great start to the day.
Sourdough breakfast bread with spelt and rye
Ingredients
Biga Naturale
- 70 gram Wheat flour 12% protein content
- 30 gram water
- 19 gram sourdough starter 100% hydration
Main dough
- 180 gram Wheat flour 12% protein content
- 70 gram rye flour 8.5% protein content
- 70 gram Spelt flour 13% protein content
- 119 gram Biga
- 250 gram water
- 10 gram sea salt
Instructions
Biga
- Mix all the ingredients thoroughly and let the dough ferment overnight or at least 8 hours.
Main dough
- Mix all ingredients except the salt. Make sure that all flour is hydrated. Let the dough rest for an hour. You can also let the dough autolyze for an hour. In that case, mix the starter together with the salt afterward.
- Add half of the salt and perform one stretch and fold. After 30 minutes, add the rest of the salt and perform one set stretch and fold. Perform 3 additional sets of stretch and folds during bulk fermentation, spaced out by 30 minutes.*
- Let the dough rest for about 5 hours at a temperature of 78ºF/25ºC if possible.
- Lightly flour your work surface and dump out the dough. Divide it into two pieces with your bench knife. Flatten the dough gently with your hands. Form each piece of dough to a bâtard There's a link to an excellent video showing how to form a bâtard in the recipe notes**
- Let the loaves rise until they pass the finger poke test. The time required depends a lot on ambient temperature so don't look at the clock.
- Preheat your oven to 480ºF / 250ºC with two oven plates. One to bake the bread on and one just below. If you have a baking stone or dutch oven, use them instead.
- Score the loaves in your preferred pattern and place them in the oven. Pour some water on the plate below and bake each loaf in 30-40 minutes.
- Let the breads cool on wire racks.
36 Comments
Made this today. The most flavoursome bread I have ever made. The rye flour I used had a protein content of13%. Very nutty. Thanks, Tomas. I will be making this bread often.
I’m so glad you liked it, Ada. Rye and Spelt make wonders for the taste. We have been celebrating midsummer here in Sweden this weekend, so I haven’t had the chance to bake anything. So I have to eat something else for breakfast this week. It will be a looong week.
Hello there,
You mention coarse rye. Are you home milling your rye?
If so, what mill and setting? If not, what brand a rye do you use?
This recipe sure does sound like a great way to start any day!
Cheers,
Annr
Hi Anne,
No, I’m not milling my own rye. At least not yet. I’m afraid you can’t find the brand I’m using if you are not living in Sweden. But I think it comparable to pumpernickel rye flour, so go for the best pumpernickel rye flour you can get. If you can’t find any, try whole rye instead. It should work fine.
Hi Tomas,
I guess someday I will trek to Sweden and leave with a suitcase of flour!
I can get pumpernickel rye here in the US so will try in first with commercial flour and then will experiment milling rye.
I appreciate your excellent descriptions and detailed explanations of processes. Wonderful job! You could have your own cookbook.
Look forward to more of your posts!
Cheers,
Anne
Many thanks for those encouraging words, Anne. They mean so much. It’s positive response like this that makes me continuing with this blog.
Writing a book would be fun. But very time consuming and probably quite expensive with proofreading and things like that. After all, English is not my native tongue, even if I’m trying to write in English on this blog.
Hi,
I am interested in making this recipe and am wondering what Biga is and what the difference is between it and the sourdough starter? I tried to do a Google search but haven’t found anything helpful.
Thanks!
A Biga is a rather stiff pre-ferment, traditionally made of commercial yeast. As Matt said in his comment, It is misleading to use the name Biga when using sourdough starter, so I decided to change to Biga naturale that is more correct.
Biga’s are made from yeast. Your “biga” is called levain.
Biga is a pre-ferment that was “invented” after the Italien bakers started to use commercial yeast instead of sourdough starter in an attempt to get back some of the taste they lost. So you are right. Using the word Biga is a bit misleading even if it’s often used as a name for a stiff pre-ferment even in the sourdough community. But the Italiens found their way back to the sourdough starter, so they invented Biga Naturale. A stiff pre-ferment made from a sourdough starter. So, I will change the name to Biga Naturale instead.
Hi,
Can I keep the dough refrigerated for 2 days after the 5 stretching times?
Hi Suha,
48 hours is a very long time, even in the fridge. I have never pushed the bulk fermentation that far, even if I have heard about other bakers that have. The rye flour may mess everything up. It ferments quicker than wheat flour.
Try to place the dough in the coldest area in Your refrigerator (normally in the lower parts) and give it a try. If it gets over proofed, you have only lost time and some flour.
Thanks, Tomas for excellent, delicious recipe. bread. Dark Rye flour from Bob’s Red Mill. Only changes: boule shape, refrigerated to rise several hours. From fridge to COLD Dutch oven, poppy seeds on top, started @500. Sadly, Bob’s stopped producing pumpernickel flour.
When you mention mature starter does that mean active and bubbly or one that was fed within the last 24 hours, please? Thank you, looking forward to making this bread.
A mature sourdough starter is stable and well established. It’s a starter that works in a predictable way. I always try to use my starter when it is active and bubbly. You can use it when it’s “young”, and hasn’t peaked yet. Just bear in mind that the dough will need longer fermentation time. Try to avoid to use a starter that has begun to fall back.
Not calculating the phase if the starter into the base recipe is a problem I find on many excellent Sourdough sites. As a beginning baker my greatest frustration is trying to get the timing right between feeding the starter, and the starter being at the right phase to prepare the levain, and then the overnight fermentation etc. It would be really helpful to have the timing of all of this explained in more detail, ie. feed starter at 8 AM and prepare biga at about 1 PM. I realize it’s a process of becoming familiar with the dough in it stages but as a beginner first I need to be able to successfully go thriugh the process before I’m going to understand what I’m looking for. Does that make sense? Thank you
Hi Jolinda,
I understand your frustration. But baking with sourdough starter is a bit more challenging than baking with yeast. That’s why many recipes won’t give you a detailed time schedule you want. Thee are simply too many factors that may affect that schedule. The strength of your starter, the flour you are using, ambient temperature, etc. You simply have to gain some experience and that, unfortunately, includes that you may fail sometimes.
However, there is one site called “The perfect loaf” you can check. Try the recipe for beginners. There you will find a more detailed time shedule.
Hi I am currently in the process of making this sourdough and at the point of stretching and folding. Should o be concerned that the dough itself is tearing when I stretch it? Or is it just
Hi Ellie,
If the dough is tearing you should hold back you’re stretching a bit. Perhaps let the dough rest longer between each stretch and fold, and let it gain some extensibility.
Hi I am currently in the process of making this sourdough and at the point of stretching and folding. Should o be concerned that the dough itself is tearing when I stretch it? Or is it just due to the addition of rye and spelt being dense? It just differs a lot to the video you had attached.
Much appreciated
Hi with the bend and stretch do I do that in the bowl or on the bench mine was sticky?
Hi Kate,
I prefer to do it in the bowl. The hydration of this dough is about 72%. It’s not that high. But different types of flour handles hydration differently. If your dough is very sticky you can add more flour. I know that this advice is a big no-no in many baking communities, but I do think it’s better to do that then trying to handle dough that feels hopeless.
Thanks. I will try recipe again. My bread is extremely small but it’s worth trying again. With the stretch and fold technique- I viewed the video you posted.
Hi Tomas,
Do you think that subsituting a wheat starter with a 100% hydration rye starter will make a huge difference? I only have a rye starter and don’t really want to have both in my fridge. Thanks, love you website. The easy sourdough is our daily bread!
Hi Berrith,
No, I don’t think that will be a problem. The amount of sourdough starter is quite small, so It won’t make much difference.
I’m glad you like the rye recipe despite all the problems you have had with it.
When you mention wheat flour, do you mean All Purpose Flour or Bread Flour? Not sure if in Europe they use the same names for flour we do in the states.
No, we don’t have the same names here in Europe. But I know what you mean, and I would recommend bread flour. You can use all-purpose flour as well, but you may have to adjust the water amount a bit.
Another note, I tried this recipe, are you sure this is suppose to make two loaves? The amount of dough created was barely enough for one banneton.
The idea with this recipe was to make small size bread that can be eaten before they become stale. But you can of course make one loaf if you prefer that.
I don’t have spelt but do have rye. Would tryout swap rye or white flour for spelt? Also, would prefer to proof in boule shaped banneton.
Hi Sandi,
You can use both rye or white flour. If you want a similar result as in my recipe I suggest white flour. Rye will give you more taste, but baking qualities will not be as good.
You can proof in whatever shape you prefer. It’s not important.
Hi Ive just made bread – looks fab. Like Patrick I also made one loaf in a boule shape. The quantities are such that it makes a one medium sized loaf. If Id divided it the loaves would have been large rolls 🙂
Can you help me work out my timings so that I can bake this in the morning… I did the biga overnight then set to the next morning and baked the loaf at 7 in the evening… how can i stretch out the timescale?
Hi Claire.
After you have shaped the loaf, place it in a plastic bag, and let it proof/retard overnight in the refrigerator. You can bake it in the morning. This is a quite common procedure and it will result in a tastier and perhaps higher bread. Be aware, though, that the taste can be a bit sourer.
Hi Tomas, thanks for all the amazing recipes and effort you put into this website. I have only started to do sourdough bread and I’ve recently done another of your rye recipes and it was great. Do you think this recipe will work if I use my rye starter (100% hydration) and just adjust the water accordingly? I’m also thinking about adding a bit of malt extract in the beginning, what do you think? Congratulations for your hard work, I hope to do many recipes from here!
Hi Marcela,
I’m glad to hear that you like S&D. I hope you will get some great baking experiences with my recipes. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I assume you want to replace the Biga natural with your rye starter and adjust the water amount in the dough.? You can do that, but be aware that there will be a lot of rye. Nothing wrong with that. Rye is fabulous when it comes to adding taste, but you will probably get a different structure on the crumb than what is shown in the pictures. Baking qualities for rye is not as good as for wheat, so your bread may become a bit more compact.
I have never used malt extract so I don’t know that much about it. The only thing I can say is that you should use it sparingly, as too much may extend the fermentation time. Your finished loaf will probably become slightly darker as you are adding sugar.
should the biga float after the overnight 8 hours? mine did not.