I've finally come up with a better way to cook my sourdough bread--use the air fryer. The air fryer really is just a mini-convection oven, and so it's fantastic for baking sourdough bread. The bread comes out nicely browned with a slightly crunchy crust, and it's soft and moist inside. Admittedly, you can't bake a giant loaf in the air fryer, but, if you're okay with making boules, the air fryer is great. You can bake the bread in a 6-inch round cake pan, if you'd like. I think the boules turn out better, though, if you let them rise in a small mixing bowl and then turn the dough out onto a sheet of parchment paper that you've cut to fit in the air fryer (leave the ends long, so you can put the bread in the heated air fryer basket and remove the bread easily when it's done). What about the bread itself? The wheat and oat bread recipe I'm offering you today is a basic sourdough that's tangy, wonderfully moist, and just right for sandwiches, smearing with peanut butter or jam for breakfast, or just eating with dinner, plain or slathered with butter, if you like. The bread also is rich in whole grains, so you get extra nutrition.
Air-Fried Sourdough Wheat and Oat Bread -- Makes 2 Loaves
1 cup of sourdough starter/discard
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of almond milk (or regular milk)
2 tablespoons of canola oil
2 tablespoons of honey
2 cups of white whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of quick cooking oats
1 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
In a large bowl, mix the starter/discard, water, almond milk, canola oil, honey, white whole-wheat flour, salt, and oats well until everything is combined and the dough is a bit stretchy. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let the dough rise 6-8 hours. Stir the dough down and add 1 cup of all-purpose flour. You can stir or knead the dough in the bowl, if you'd prefer less clean up. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of flour as you knead if the dough seems too sticky, but avoid adding more flour or your bread will be tough. Divide the dough into two roughly equal pieces and shape each piece into a round. Put the rounds into 6-inch pans or small mixing bowls that have been coated with non-stick cooking spray. Spritz the tops of the rounds with non-stick cooking spray, cover them loosely with plastic wrap, and let them rise for about 2 hours. If you've let the rounds rise in a mixing bowl, turn them out onto parchment paper cut into rectangles just large enough to fit inside the air fryer. Be sure to leave at least a few inches of parchment on either side of the round, so that you can lift the rounds into and out of the air fryer easily. Bake the rounds in the air fryer, one-at-a-time, for 20-25 minutes at 360 degrees. Let the rounds cool before slicing them.
