Sometimes you end up with a lot of different flour in your pantry and just want to throw it all in the bowl and see what happens. That’s exactly what I did with this experimental loaf. For having seven different kinds of flours, it actually rose very well and has a nice dark tan crumb.

Schedule

Using the lazy sourdough method is actually quite simple. The real key to this method is that you can use your unfed starter straight from the fridge without the need to make a levain. There’s also no autolyse which saves about 30 minutes.

Schedule: Here’s a link to the lazy sourdough method.

The exact schedule I used is at the bottom of this post.

Ingredients:

This recipe makes two loaves. Simply divide all the ingredients in half if you only want one loaf.

Dough

• 800g Ardent Mills Kyrol high protein flour (14.3% protein)
• 50g whole wheat flour
• 50g dark rye flour
• 50g spelt flour
• 20g buckwheat flour
• 20g teff flour
• 20g spent grain flour
• 750g filtered water @ 93’F
• 200g unfed starter straight from fridge (100% hydration)
• 22g sea salt

Method:

After mixing the flours, starter, water and salt, I performed 4 stretch and folds within the first 2 hours. I was expecting it to be a gigantic sticky mess with the various flours (I’ve had bad luck with buckwheat in the past), but it actually formed a pretty cohesive mass after the first fold.

I let the dough bulk ferment at room temperature for about 7 hours and 30 minutes. My dough rose to just under the 4qt line in my Cambro bucket. Bulk fermentation can take anywhere between 7-9 hours depending on the temperature of your kitchen and how active your culture is. My bulk ferments using this method often take a little less than 8 hours.

Once the dough had doubled, I shaped the loaves and put them in bannetons that I liberally dusted with rice flour. I opted to skip the sesame and poppy seeds for these loaves and instead just let the crust shine. The bannetons were wrapped in vegetable bags and then placed them in the fridge for a slightly shorter 14 hour cold proof.

One hour before baking I started preheating the oven, with dutch ovens inside, to 450’F. When it was time to bake, I took the loaves straight from the fridge and placed them in the preheated dutch ovens, gave them a quick score and then put them in the oven. The walnuts might get in the way of the scoring. If that happens, you can gently nudge the walnut out of the way and continue scoring

I baked the loaves at 450’F for 20 minutes covered, then removed the lid of the dutch ovens and baked for an additional 30 minutes.

Result:

I was expecting these loaves to be pretty flat but they actually rose fairly well. All of the specialty flours resulted in a much darker crust, but there was still some really nice blistering present.

The loaves smell incredibly earthy and full of grains thanks to all of the flours. Thanks to the darker flour, the crumb is dark tan with some black specks throughout. Since most of the additional flours were hindering gluten development, the crumb is a little on the tighter side, but it isn’t overly moist.

My Baking Notes

• Ambient Temperature @ mixing: 66’F
• Mixed @ 11:10am on March 13th
• Dough was 79’F at mixing
• 4 stretch and folds in first 2 hours
• Started proof @ 7:05pm on March 13th
• Preheated oven @ 8:30am on March 14th
• Out of fridge and into oven @ 9:30am