Sweet Potato, Polenta and Rosemary Sourdough

My latest bake is this sweet potato, polenta and rosemary sourdough. I remember last time I use sweet potato in my sourdough bread is at the begining of my sourdough journey. Both scenarios are the same – I had some old sweet potato left that I have to use it as soon as possible before it goes off and voila the sweet potato sourdough is born.

I try to use something different or something I haven’t had a chance to use before in my bread. And this time I’m going to try polenta. Growing up with rice-eating culture, polenta is not something I’m familiar with until I moved to Sudney and started working in kitchen. I learned more about polenta from the staff meal I had or the polenta chips we had on menu.

People often think polenta and cornmeal are the same. Well, yes and no. Cornmeal can be made from different kinds of corns like white, yellow or blue corn. It is ground into differnet consistency: fine, medium and coarse. On the other hand, polenta originally is a dish made from cooked cornmeal, not an ingredient. Nowadays you can find packages labeled “polenta” in supermarkets which refers to the right grind yellow cornmeal for making polenta dish. If not available, use coarse or medium ground corn meal instead.

sweet potato, polenta and rosemary sourdough recipe

weight	ingredient	baker’s percentage
450g	baker’s flour (12.5% protein)	90%
50g	wholemeal flour	10%
375g	water	75%
150g	starter	30%
10g	salt	2%
100g	sweet potato (roasted, pasted)	20%
100g	polenta	20%
10g	rosemary (chopped)	2%
total 1245g

Workflow

Day before or on the same day	Prepare sweet potato paste (see notes below)
Day 1
14:30	Autolyse Mix baker’s flour, wholemeal flour and water (save some for later) until a dough forms. Cover with a tea towel and leave aside for 30 minutes.
	Prepare polenta and chop rosemary Boil water and mix 45g polenta (cornmeal) and 65g boiling water until all the water is soaked in polenta. Leave aside to cool down. Chop rosemary into small pieces.
15:00	Add in starter to the dough and mix for 3 minutes until corporated. Add in salt and the rest of the water and continue mixing for another 3 minutes. Lamination : add in sweet potato, soaked polenta and rosemary and fold the dough, transfer the dough to another container.
15:10	Bulk ferment starts. Perform 3 coil fold sets with 30 minutes intervals in between in the first 1.5 hours.
21:10	Pre-shape. 622g * 2 Bench rest for 15 minutes
21:30	Final shape Transfer to the fridge for cold proof overnight.
Day 2
8:40	Pre heat oven and cast iron bread pan/ dutch oven to max temperature setting.
9:40	Score the bread and bake. 250 degree, 20 minutes, with lid. 230 degree, 20-25 minutes, without lid.

Notes

* To make sweet potato paste, simply chop 2 small sweet potato into pieces and bake in oven until soft. (200 degree, 15-25 minutes depending on the size). Personally I prefer some chunks of sweet potato in my bread so I would use a fork to roughly make it into a paste.

* Some recipes use polenta(cornmeal) as part of dry ingredients and if that’s the case, there’s no requirement of soaking it first. With this recipe, I soak polenta with boiling water before hand as a soaker. Just like any other inclusion e.g. nuts, seeds or dried fruit, pre-soaking assists to hydrate inclusion and also prevents inclusions from absorbing (stealing) water from the dough.

* One of the benefit of pre-soaking inclusion is that those inclusion will maintain hydrated and promises the soft and moist texture in the final baked goods.

* lamination: before moving into bulk ferment stage, spread the dough out and add sweet potato paste, polenta and rosemary on the dough. Fold both sides towards center and fold the dough again from upwards to downwards. (check this post to see demostration of how to add in inclusions at notes section)

* Feel free to use other herbs instead of rosemary. Thyme will be a good substitute for this recipe. I choose rosemary because I have easy access to it. There is rosemary bush in the garden at my unit block. (Fun fact : rosemary can be found everywhere in Inner West Sydney. Go for a walk around the block and I can fine new spots of rosemary!)

At the end

This sweet potato, polenta and rosemary sourdough is by far one of the moistest sourdough I have ever made. I love how soft and moist the texture is. In every bite, I taste the rich flavor from rosemary. This recipe is definately for rosemary and bread lover!