This Malted Sourdough Formula Produces an Amazingly Soft Loaf

Today I'm going to show you how to make a beautifully soft malted milk sourdough loaf. Now this is perfect for anything that you can wedge between two slices of bread. Now this loaf owes its outstanding flavour profile and softness to a combination of malted barley, milk and honey. Okay so it's nine o'clock in the evening and I'm going to mix my leaven in preparation for making the dough tomorrow morning. Now our recipe formula calls for 141 grams of leaven but I'm going to make just a little bit more to account for any weight lost during fermentation but it also gives me enough leftover for my next baking session. So in my jar I've mixed 80 grams of room temperature water with 80 grams of my strong bread flour. I've also included 8 grams of my sourdough starter. Now using around 10% of sourdough starter to the weight of the flour means that around 25 degrees celsius my leaven is going to happily ferment throughout the night and it's going to be ready to use first thing in the morning. This is one of the best sourdough scheduling tactics that you can adopt. Right so it's nine o'clock the next morning and it's time to mix the main dough. So into my mixing bowl goes 319 grams of whole milk. This has got a fat content of 3.5%. The milk's cold, it's come straight from the fridge. Next we've got 10 grams of salt going into the bowl and I'm just going to give the mixture a stir just to make sure that it's dissolved. Now I'm adding 48 grams of whole wheat flour and 24 grams of non-diastatic malted barley. Now I've milled and sifted my own malted barley. You can find these malted grains very easily from online beer suppliers and you can either use a mill like mine or you can grind them using a spice grinder. Alternatively you can use store-bought non-diastatic malt powder. Now I've said that a few times, just remember this is non-diastatic malted barley. I'm using it purely for flavour and colour and not as a bread improver. Next I'm adding 143 grams of my bubbly sourdough leaven that we made last night. Now the residue that's left inside the jar, that's going to go into my fridge and it's going to be ready to sieve my next leaven. If you want to learn more about how I do this I'll link to the video in the description. In goes 24 grams of honey. Now you could do sugar but the honey pairs perfectly with the malt and the milk combination. This is going to get a really good mix to break up and distribute the honey and the leaven before we add 333 grams of strong white bread flour. Now the aim of the game here is to bring this mixture together into a rough dough. It does not need to be smooth but you do want to make sure that there aren't any kind of dry spots of flour remaining. Now this is going to sit at room temperature to rest for about one hour. Right so after the rest we can just flip this dough out onto the bench and you can already get this warm toasty aroma from that malted barley. We're going to spend about one minute making sure this dough is well mixed. Now the dough is a little bit sticky at this stage so just be gentle. The more pressure you use the stickier the mixture will become and don't panic. The dough is going to become easier to handle as that flour continues to absorb the milk and of course our dough builds strength. Remember different flours will have different absorption capabilities so if you do find your dough is either a touch dry or maybe it's a little bit too wet just make a note and then tweak the This is another very good reason to use a recipe calculator because it just makes tweaking formulas an absolute breeze. Right so now our dough can rest covered again at 25 degrees celsius. Right so it's been two hours since we mixed the dough and you really can get the smell from that malted barley. It really is amazing. Now at this point I'm just going to give this dough a very quick stretch. As you can see the dough properties have changed considerably over the last hour. It's now a lot easier to handle. Now I do like adding this stretching session in so that I can just see how the dough is behaving but as the dough is being baked in a tin you could skip this stage. I've actually mixed this exact dough in the evening and then left it overnight to ferment with no stretching whatsoever and it still produces a wonderful loaf. So if you're busy and you don't have the time, don't lose any sleep over it. Everything's going to be okay. So now this dough is just going to sit covered for the rest of the bulk fermentation. Now my baking tins are non-stick but I always give them a quick massage with olive oil just to make sure that nothing sticks. If you're on the hunt for a good baking tin I'm going to leave these linked below. I've had them for about four plus years I guess and they are brilliant. I'm also going to leave the dimensions down there so you can compare your tin size and then scale the dough accordingly. Another good reason to use a recipe calculator. So our dough is increased in volume by about 75 percent. I lightly dust the top with flour and then flip it out onto the bench. After easing the dough out into a circle I gently press down which removes a bit of the gas and kind of evens out the dough. I fold the two sides into the center and then I roll it up. I seal the joint, flip the dough over, seal up the two ends and then I tidy it up using my bench scraper. The dough goes into the tin with the seam facing down and that's it. We're going to cover this tin and we're going to leave it to prove at ambient temperature until it comes up to just underneath the rim of the tin. This took about three hours for my dough. Now it's going to go into the fridge to be retarded overnight. Remember if your tin is a different size to mine then the benchmarks for how much the dough increases in volume will be relative to the size of your tin. It may need to be adjusted. Many people forget this and that can result in either an under-proved dough or an over-proved dough. Right so it's nine o'clock the next morning and I've preheated my oven to 200 degrees celsius. The oven is set to bake mode. That uses top heat and bottom heat with no fan. I'm going to maintain this temperature throughout the bake. Now I'm not using a baking stone or a baking steel. This loaf is going to be baked directly on the bottom oven shelf. But before you slide this into the oven I want you to check to see if there's any bubbles on the surface of the dough. If there are I want you to gently pop them to release the gas inside. If you skip this then these bubbles tend to blow up and burn before the crust is cooked properly. Now I place an inverted baking tray between the top of the tin and the heating element just to protect the dough during the first 30 minutes of baking. Then it can be removed and that loaf can just be left to develop this amazing deep colour which results in a wonderful flavour profile. Now in total this loaf took 40 minutes to bake in my oven. You will be shocked at how these ingredients can come together and produce such a soft flavourful sourdough. Now if you want to find out how I'm using a coffee pot to maximise the oven spring of my sourdough you should join me in this video over here. Give this recipe a whirl, let me know what you think. Don't forget full recipe and calculator linked down below. I'll see you again very soon, stay tuned.