In celebration of Real Bread Week, London-based Hawkker vendor The Floating Boulangerie is exclusively sharing one of their favourite bread recipes: a Comté cheese, smoked bacon, and walnut sourdough loaf from their October menu.
If you somehow dodged the homemade sourdough craze of 2020 and do not have your own sourdough starter, you can instead use yeast.
Ingredients:
180g bread flour
60g rye flour
75 sourdough starter, or 3g dry yeast
140g water
4g salt
60g Comté
30g cooked bacon
25g roasted walnuts
Method:
• In a large bowl, mix together both flours, the salt, water, and sourdough starter/yeast. Mix for 3 to 4 minutes until you manage to make a smooth but still slightly sticky dough.
• Cover the bowl and let the dough set for 10 mins.
• Dice the Comté, roughly chop the walnuts and cook the bacon, then add to the dough.
• Knead for about 2 mins, cover again and let set for another 10 mins.
• Repeat this last step twice more.
• Coat a container with oil to prevent your dough from sticking to the sides – we recommend using sunflower oil so that it does not affect the taste of the bread. Put your dough in the container and let proof for 45 mins.
• Cover a working surface with flour.
• Take your dough out of its container and start removing gas bubbles by gently pressing the dough with your hands, then shape your dough into a ball and return it to its oiled container.
• Place the dough in the fridge for a minimum of 8 hours.
• After that time, let the dough return to room temperature for about an hour.
• Pre-heat your oven to 250°C.
• Score the dough.
• We advise you to bake the dough on a bread or pizza stone, and to add a tray containing a bit of water to the oven.
• Bake for 20 minutes then bring down the temperature to 190°C for another 20 minutes.
• After removing the bread from the oven make sure you let it cool down on a grill, and never cut it before it is completely cool.
Happy Real Bread Week!
Find out more about the French couple behind London’s first boat-based bakery, and visit The Floating Boulangerie’s Hawkker profile.
Header image courtesy of Anton.
