Chickpea Flour Sourdough

Three-word description for this bread: healthy, creamy, delicious! I love chickpea flour, it brings such a creamy texture to sourdough bread, almost like butter. Chickpea flour is also full of fiber, which provides another reason why you should try this recipe!

Ingredients

Sourdough starter 

• 5g sourdough starter
• 35g water
• 30g all purpose flour or bread flour
• 5g rye flour

Dough

• 270g bread flour (90%)
• 30g chickpea flour (10%)
• 207g water (69%)
• 21g (7%) cold water added along with salt. Total hydration 76%
• 60g levain (20%)
• 6g salt (2%)

Directions 

Starter

• 7 am add starter to the water and whisk together, add flour, mix well, cover loosely, let it sit at room temperature 74-78F until in about 8-10 hours starter reaches its peak (triples or more in volume). Learn how to make starter from scratch here.

Dough

• 5 pm mix water with all flour and cover, let it rest for 1 hour to complete the autolyse.

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• During the autolyse process the flour absorbs the water, becoming fully hydrated. This activates gluten development.
• 6 pm add sourdough starter. 
• Mix on low speed of your mixing machine for 2-3 minutes, or KitchenAid on speed 3 for 3-4 minutes until well incorporated. 
• Also if for some reason you don’t have a mixing machine, you can incorporate starter into the dough by hands. Using Rubaud method or slap and fold method (about 5-7 min).
• Cover, let it rest for 30 minutes.
• 6:30 pm add salt and extra water. 
• The process of adding extra water is called bassinage, it helps to tighten up gluten. Mix on low speed of your mixing machine for 2-3 min, or with KitchenAid on speed 3 for 5-6 minutes until well incorporated. The dough should come up together, but still be sticky on the bottom.
• Please note, if you perform mixing by hands, using Rubaud method or slap and fold method, that takes about 10 minutes. Do a couple of stops in between kneading, it helps tightening up gluten.
• Continue gluten development and structure building by performing stretches and folds during the warm fermentation period.
• Leave to rest 30 min. At 74-78F /23-26C.
• 7 pm wet your hands and perform 1st stretch and fold.

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• 7:45pm 2nd stretch and fold.
• 8:30 pm 3rd stretch and fold.
• 9:15 pm 4th stretch and fold.

Performing stretches and folds helps with gluten development. Keep monitoring the dough, if it rises too fast, you can shorten the time between stretches to 40 minutes or less.

• After the final stretch let the dough proof for 30 minutes at 76-80F/ 23-26C. You should see some bubbles on the surface, the dough has to become lighter. We are looking for 40%-50% rise. 

Preshaping Sourdough

• 9:45 pm Transfer the dough on to a work surface and dust its top with flour. Flip the dough over so the floured side faces down. 
• Fold the dough onto itself so the flour on the surface remains entirely on the outside of the loaf. This will become the crust. 
• Place the dough round on a work surface and let it rest for 30 minutes uncovered.

Shaping Sourdough

• 10:15 pm dust the dough with flour. Use a dough scraper to flip it over on to a work surface so the floured side faces down. 
• Starting at the side closest to you, pull the right 2 corners of the dough to the left, then fold them up into half of the dough. Repeat this action on the left side too.
• Finally, roll the dough. Shape it into a smooth, taut roll.
• Transfer the roll, seam side up, into a prepared proofing basket (loaf pan with kitchen towel).

• Cover it with plastic and return the dough to the 80F (27C) environment for 15 minutes. 
• Then transfer the dough to rise for 14-24 hours in refrigerator.

• Preheat your oven to 500 F, place a cast iron pan with the lid inside for 45 minutes – 1 hour.
• Remove the dough from the fridge. 
• Flip it over on a parchment paper, score it with a sharp knife or a scoring lame. 

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• Transfer it on to the hot cast iron pan, cover with lid (to create steam for a beautiful and crusty crumb).
• Bake at 500F for 15 minutes with lid on.
• Remove the lid, lower temperature to 450F. 
• Bake for 20 more minutes until golden brown.

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Enjoy your chickpea flour sourdough loaf 🙏