Rustic Sourdough Wholegrain Bread in a Cloche recipe by Marliss Desens

Overnight Levain:
1 cup milk based, thick sourdough starter at room temperature (fed within last few days best)
1 cup Bob's Red Mill Artisan Bread flour

½ cup (85 g) King Arthur Harvest Grains, with ½ cup boiling water poured over, then cooled

1 cup water (110F)
1 Tbs. honey
1 ¾ tsp. active dried yeast

(385 g) 3 cups Bob's stoneground whole wheat flour
(66 g) ½ cup Pumpernickel or dark rye flour
3 Tbs. (29 g) special dry milk
3 Tbs (23 g) flax meal

½ cup (64 g) Bob's Red Mill Artisan flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt

3 Tbs. olive oil

The night before (10-12 hours), mix the levain, cover, and let bowl sit on counter.

The next day, proof yeast in water with honey in stand mixer bowl for 5 minutes. Add cooled harvest grain mixture and levain. Mix with paddle. Combine the wholegrain flours, flax meal, dry milk Add to yeast mixture and mix until combined. Cover mixer with a towel and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

Combine remaining bread flour with salt. Add to mixer bowl and mix to combine. Drizzle in olive oil. Switch to bread spiral and knead (speed 3 my mixer), about 7-9 minutes until a windowpane can be pulled. Put dough into an oiled 4-qt dough bucket and allow to rise until double, 45 minutes to an hour, depending on warmth of kitchen and activeness of sourdough.

When dough has risen, grease the Romertopf bread bowl (bottom diameter dimension is 8 inches and top dimension is 10 inches) and sprinkle liberally with farina. Turn dough out onto kneading mat. Pre-shape a boule by patting flat and folding in each of the four sides, then turning it clockwise and pulling it in around the diameter. Repeat. Turn over and tuck around sides before placing in center of bowl. Cover with cloche top. Allow to rise for 35 minutes or until nearly doubled. Slash top with a lame. Replace cloche top and put the bowl into a COLD oven (the second rack, my usual bread baking position.) Turn on oven to 425 F. Set timer for 50 minutes.

At 55 minutes, remove cloche with lid to a towel on counter. (The towel protects the countertop and also prevents the bowl and cloche top from breaking due to thermal shock.) Check internal temperature. It should be 195-200 F. Remove bread from bowl and allow to cool on rack.

How I developed this recipe:
First Attempt: Wednesday, June 1, 2022
I decided to try an experiment for a rustic sourdough bread I wanted to bake. I worked off of the King Arthur recipe that appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of Sift (p. 65), but I made an overnight levain using a cup of my thick, milk-based starter, 1 cup King Arthur AP and ½ cup water. The next day, I mixed it with a cup of water to which I had added 1 Tbs. honey and proofed 1 ¾ tsp. yeast, then added a mixture of 3 cups whole wheat flour, ½ cup mostly pumpernickel flour, and 2 Tbs. special dry milk. After mixing, I allowed it to rest covered for 15 minutes, then I added ½ cup Bob's Red Mill Artisan bread flour, mixed with 1 ½ tsp. salt. (The original recipe calls for 2 ½ tsp.!) I mixed in 2 Tbs. olive oil, then kneaded. I had to add a bit more of the bread flour to bring the dough together. I let it rise for 45 minutes, which was more than enough time. After turning it out onto the mat, I pre-shaped into a boule, waited 5 minutes, then repeated the shaping, using a technique I saw online. In the past, I have tried to shape boules from the top, pulling the dough in; now I work from the bottom.
I baked the bread in a round Romertopf bread baking bowl that I bought from King Arthur some years ago but had never used. I did not know at the time that most Romertopfs have lids. I have a small King Arthur bread baking bowl, and it can be a challenge getting the bread cooked through without the top getting over browned and having to be covered with foil. I found that the cloche cover, from the cloche set I bought from Skeptic, rests nicely on the rim of the bowl. So, I greased the glazed bowl, sprinkled with farina, and put the shaped dough inside to rise, covered with the cloche top. Given the speed of the first rise, and the warmth of the house, left over from yesterday's heat, I anticipated a quick second rise and checked it at 35 minutes, slashed the top, then put it into the cold oven and set the temperature for 425F. I checked at 40 minutes, and the temperature was 165, although the top had browned nicely, so I re-covered and let it go another ten minutes, at which time it reached 200F. It came out of the bowl beautifully. It ended up a bit lopsided, no doubt a shaping error, but at the highest, it is three inches tall. I will cut it tonight to go with soup at dinner, at which time, it would have at least five and a half hours to cool.
I decide that next time, I would replace all the AP flour with Bob's Red Mill Artisan flour, and I would do two pre-shapings before the final shaping of the boule. I later decided that the additional pre-shapings did not help and may indeed have detracted from the final shape.

Additional Work in 2023 and early 2024:
I wanted to add Harvest Grains. I found that doing so works better if boiling water is poured over them first, then allowed to cool. I added 2 Tbs. flax meal and increased the special dry milk from 2 to 3 Tbs. The bread stays softer longer with more oil, so I increased the olive oil to 3 Tbs. The extra liquid (from Harvest Grains and water) meant increasing the baking time from 50 to 55 minutes.