Easter Sourdough
I started this dough yesterday, aiming to bake 36 hot cross buns today (April 1), for Easter. The dough was mixed, left to rise for 2 hours, folded back, and then put into the cold, in a sealed plastic box, overnight.
The cold place was our doorstep, with the outdoor temperature just slightly above freezing all through the night. All the recipes that include this step write; "Place the dough in the fridge..." but who has room for 3 kilos of dough in their fridge? When you ask the sourdough gurus about this it turns out they usually have a separate fridge, just for their sourdough!
Fortunately we have an extra house! In the summer I use the fridge in The Red House, but in the other seasons I can usually find a suitably chilly place somewhere, inside or outside.
The overnight chilled fermentation adds to the flavours, and a cold dough is a lot less sticky than a warm one, so it's easier to handle. The cold slows the fermentation but as you can see from these bubbles it doesn't stop entirely.
The colours here come from the fruit in the mix - sultanas, currants, cranberries and apricots.
You can see the finished product in the extra. They were rather good to eat!
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