Starter prep the day before
I want a young and fresh starter, so I get it out of storage the day before, so
- Morning the day before: discard and feed 50g/50g water/flour
- Evening the day before: discard and feed 50g/50g water flour
Prep on the day
0 hours: Morning the day of baking: discard slightly less and feed 100g/100g water/flour
Autolyse
2 hours: after that feed, I start the autolyse, hot water and the breakdown is
- 600g strong white flour
- 200g of other flours for flavour (I favour light rye and spelt, sometimes I'll use wholemeal, or even get something malty in there)
- 660g of hot water
Give that a good mix and put to one side with a cover on it
Mixing
4 hours: or when the starter is bubbly and doubled in volume
- I throw in 180g of the starter (ish, hotter weather means less starter, etc)
- 22g of salt
I use the "Ribaud" method for mixing, 5 minutes of that
4.5hours: Ribaud again for 5 minutes
I stick the 300g of fruit and nuts in the oven to bake at this point
- 4.75 hours: fold it, probably remove the fruit and nuts, let them cool down (they should be darker, but not burned)
- 5 hours: fold it
- 5.25 hours: fold it
- 5.5 hours: fold it + add all the fruit and nuts, don't worry about folding them entirely in, don't tear the dough trying to get it all in
- 6 hours: fold it
- 6.5 hours: fold it
- 7 hours: fold it
Fold every hour from this point until it's ready for shaping, you either know or you don't - I can't help you
Shaping
- N Hours: This makes two loaves, split it and pre-shape, leave bench rest for 45min/1 hour
- N+1 hours: final shape, transfer to banneton
Stick in fridge overnight.
Baking day
Remove from fridge, get oven turned on, either let the loaves warm up and rise further if it looks like they've not got enough lift yet, or get them in when ready - I bake for 25 minutes with lid on, 25 minutes with lid off, 250C and 220C respectively.
Leave to cool for six hours at least, enjoy!