You may think that this bread is only a looker, but it has it all: great taste, soft crumb, crunchy crust. Also it may be one of the most stunning breads you can make.
In a medium bowl add: 452g bread flour, 112g whole grain rye flour, and 12g salt.
Combine the ingredients with your hands.
Then add: 114g sourdough starter, and 410g water.
Mix the dough until all the flour has been hydrated, then move the dough to a bulking container.
Level the dough, and mark the top of the dough using a whiteboard marker.
Put it away for proofing somewhere warm and let it double. We want the dough to double because we are tempering the oven spring so that the inner boule doesn’t crack while it’s baking.
Mix outside layer dough
To a small bowl add: 344g all-purpose flour, and 8g salt
Mix it up with your hands.
Then add: 70g sourdough starter, and 178g water
Then mix up the dough the best you can and dump it on your kitchen counter. Knead all the flour in.
After kneading, just put it in a container and leave it with the main dough. It’s ready when the main dough is ready.
Divide and pre-shape
Divide the main dough in half and shape them as boules. Not too tight or anything.
Then let them rest on the kitchen counter for 20 minutes.
Final shaping
Flip over the boule. Pull each side out and fold over into the middle to create tension on the dough facing the table. Then flip the dough over again and shape it with your bench scraper.
Then grab a deep dish and add black sesame seeds.
Brush the boule with extra virgin olive oil. We brush it and add seeds to help the separation of the two doughs.
Using your bench scraper, flip the dough into the bowl. Get sesame seeds as far up the sides you can get.
Put the bowl with the dough and seeds aside and prepare the other boule the same way.
Make outer dough
Then clean your counter thoroughly. You don’t want any seeds on the outside dough while rolling it out.
Then grab the container with the outside dough. Halve it and put one of the pieces back in the bulking container so it doesn’t dry out.
Flour your counter and roll the dough out to a big disc.
It should be big enough to wrap around the boule. Brush the dough with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle on some black sesame seeds.
Wrap bread
Then grab a bowl with a boule and move it over to the middle of the outer dough. Grab each side of the main dough and fold it towards the center.
Wrap the outside dough loosely around the main dough, and move it to a 7-inch round banneton.
Unwrap the outer dough and then rewrap it tightly. Use scissors to remove as much dough as needed, so you don’t get a huge bulge underneath your bread.
Use the same procedure for the other bread.
Then put both bannetons in bags and leave them in the fridge to retard, from eight hours to 24 hours.
Bake the bread
When ready to bake, heat your oven to 260°C/500°F, with a baking steel and a dutch oven inside. I am using my challenger bread pan.
Let it heat for an hour, so the steel and the dutch oven are heated all the way through.
Grab the dough from the fridge. Dust the bottom with rice flour so it won’t stick to the peel.
Flip it onto the peel. Put a stencil on the top center of the dough.
You can use a little pouch made from muslin with all-purpose flour inside for easy flouring.
Hold down the stencil covering half with your hand. Then shake the flour pouch until you can see the stencil on the dough. Then turn the dough around and flour the other half.
Then score a big cross. Be very careful when you score it so you don’t score into the main dough. You can always go over the score afterward.
Then do four short scores on the side.
Take the top off the dutch oven, and put the dough inside. Then put the lid back on.
Bake for 20 minutes, and remove the top.
Then turn down the oven to 230°C/450°F, and bake for another 25 minutes.
Then take the bread out and let it cool on a wire rack until it’s room temperature.