Ingredients

300g Sourdough Starter

400g Strong White flour

100g Light Malthouse (or 3 Malts in Sunflower flour)

12g Sea Salt

340g Warm Water

50g Sunflower Seeds – roast for 8 minutes at 180c

Method

• In a large mixing bowl, mix together the warm water & starter with your hand, then add the flour. Lightly mix it all up and cover it. Leave for 1 hour to autolyse.
• After an hour, add in the salt and roasted sunflower seeds. Using a wet hand fold the salt & seeds into the dough. I tend to do the Stretch & Fold technique for this.
• After 30 minutes do 1 set of 15 Stretch & Folds.
• Over the next 4 hours or so, do 4 sets of 10 Stretch & Folds with the dough, approx. hourly for 4 times*.
• After the final set of Stretch & Folds, the dough should have nearly doubled in size. You can tip onto the worktop and shape to add tension if you like.
• Using a bench scraper lift the dough into the floured Banetton. Cover and put into the fridge overnight.
• In the morning: Remove from fridge & uncover.
• Pop the banneton & dough into the freezer for 10-15 minutes.
• After 15 minutes, flip the dough from the Banetton onto the lid of your Pyrex casserole. I do this by holding the Banetton in one hand, then I pop a piece of baking paper on top of the dough, put the lid on top & then turn the Banetton over onto the lid.
• Dust off any excess rice flour & using a sharp, wet blade cut a pattern into the top of the dough.
• Cover the dough with the base of your Pyrex casserole and put into the cold oven.
• Turn the oven on to 250c and the timer on to 52 minutes. Bake the bread for the 52 minutes, covered.
• Remove from oven, tip loaf onto a cooling rack & leave till cold.
• Enjoy!

*The original Henry Hobbs recipe says to Stretch & Fold every 30 minutes for 4 hours, but I have found that less is more. The dough is a bit sticky so you can reduce the amount of water used if you want, but I don't, its manageable enough. The original recipe uses 100g of Wholewheat flour, which would mop up a bit more water.