Hello Kailyn,
12 hours at room temp (20-21 C) does not equal 24 hours in the fridge for a proper development of the poolish / preferment. The fridge is too cold. One of the best options would be to reduce the amount of sourdough culture from 15 to 8 grams. Another option is to use a combination of initial room temp to kick start and then fridge time for the remainder when you are not there.

But for a bake to be successful, especially with a new recipe, we would always advice to try this when you have the propper time and attention, because there will always be adjustments needed to make a recipe your own.

Best of luck with it and enjoy your sourdough baking

Hello! I am new to baking with sourdough starter and I had a quick question about the poolish. I am going to be away from home for a day but I still wanted to make a loaf when I return, is it possible to make the poolish and have it sit for 24 hours instead of 12? If I were to do this should I put it in the fridge instead of setting it on the counter? Thanks!

👍

I got the kensington start sent to nz no trouble at all

Hello Mary,
Wonderful to read your comment and great the recipe worked for you too.
Einkorn is more challenging to use than average bread flour. The gluten in Einkorn are fragile and less elastic so it is more difficult to build structure (even more so than Spelt flour). Water is absorb more slowly too (an idea is to extent the autolyse fase to 30 to 40 minutes). If you start with a combination of bread flour and say 20% Einkorn, that would, we think, a good idea to give it a first try and see how it goes.

Einkorn is also great for pancakes, muffins and even cookies, exactly because of its properties. It can give a more tender and a sweet, nutty taste.

Enjoy your sourdough baking!

Hello Denis,
That is disappointing. We were also under the impression that they ship all over the world.
Could we encourage you to make your own starter culture with our instructions?
www.weekendbakery.com/posts...asy-steps/
We have to say, when receiving the dried sourdough flakes from Kensington or somebody else, you basically are instructed to do most of these steps anyway, to get a ready and active starter, so why not give this a try maybe? We remember our first culture took 3 attempts to get it going, but after that it did the job for many years!

Best of luck with it
Greetings from Holland

Thank you. Will need a loaf for Saturday, so I’ll see how this goes!

Hello Brian,
Our advice would be to make the preferment in the early morning (if the period is a bit shorter than the 12 hours in the recipe, you can also put it in a slightly warmer place and take 8 to 10 hours to develop). Make the final dough in the evening (maybe adding one hour at room temp after shaping, depending on the development of the dough at this point) then putting it in the fridge overnight and bake it the next morning.
You can also find this process with our Weekend No Knead Sourdough where we give an option for a ‘day time build’ or an ‘evening build’ for the final dough, both using the fridge.
See: www.weekendbakery.com/posts...sourdough/

Give it a few tries to find your optimum process. Best of luck with it and enjoy your sourdough!

Marieke & Ed

Hello C,
Splitting the dough in halve means baking a small loaf of about 386 grams. This amount of dough we would bake as follows in the Dutch oven:
18 mins lid on 465
8 -10 mins lid off 465
Depending on the desired crust color:
temper the oven for the last 6 to 7 minutes to 355
So total baking time is between 32 and 35 minutes.
Just try it and keep an eye on the bread after removing the lid.
It also depends on how close the heating elements are to the crust, how fast the browning goes. For some it will not even be necessary to temper the oven if they desire a bit more color with these smaller breads.

Best of luck and enjoy the baking!

** Sorry I made a mistake in my comments
22 mins lid on 465
10 mins lid off 465
10 mins 355

Hello Yasmin,
It is good of you to ask, because it can indeed make an added difference, compared to baking on a sheet or in a Dutch oven.
Because the sides are ‘protected’ by the tin, it takes longer for them to brown, while the top crust generally browns quicker, being closer to a heating element of the oven, because of the shape (this is all in general).
We would start with an oven temperature of 430 F and temper the oven to about 360F as soon as the crust has a slightly lighter shade than the desired color.
The baking time indication will still be 40 to 45 minutes, and we would advice to remove the tin after 25 to 30 minutes of baking, so the sides can brown too.
We would also advice not to score the top of the loaf and really make sure you proof it to the max. This way you get a nice sandwich style loaf with a domed top.

Best of luck with the sourdough baking!

If I’m baking this in a metal loaf tray (9×5), would it still be the same baking time/temperature of 445F for 45 minutes?

Thanks!

Hello Tanya,
Yes that is correct and with bread baking it is really that straightforward.
Under the ingredients list you see a black button that reads ‘bread calculator’. If you click on it and go to ‘number of batches’ you can change the number 1 to 2 or 3 batches. You can also print the recipe – at the top under the first picture you see ‘print this article’. It will print the recipe with the right amount of ingredients for the number of batches you have chosen.

Enjoy your sourdough baking

Hello Marie-Ève,
These are our general instructions for use of the Dutch oven:
Preheat your oven with the Dutch oven inside at 240 ºC / 464 ºF, making sure it is super hot before you start your baking.

Indication baking time and temperature:
Bake for 22 minutes with the lid on at 240 ºC / 464 ºF
Bake for 10 minutes with the lid off at 240 ºC / 464 ºF
Bake for the last 10 minutes with the lid off at 180 ºC / 356 ºF

So a little bit hotter and shorter, but see what works best for you and for this recipe in particular. With our own household oven with Dutch oven we always stick to the 42 minutes total baking time.

Hope it will be excellent.
Enjoy your baking!