Making the Sponge:
Mix together 2 cups starter, 1 cup water, and 1 cup flour. Cover with clean dry towel and let sit overnight. The next day, thinly slice 1 1/2 cup red onion and soften, with oil, in a skillet. Dry toast 1 tablespoon caraway seeds. Add the room temperature onions, caraway, 3 cups flour, 2 tablespoons oil, 4 teaspoons sugar and 1 teaspoon salt to the overnight sponge. Add 2-3 cups more flour to make a firm, smooth dough. Knead. Rise 3 hours. Shape. Rise 1 hour. Bake at 350 for 1 hr.
Prep notes:
I've yet to do the ice/preheated pan to achieve a really crusty crust. I'm just paranoid - I think that the glass on the oven door will explode with the heat change or that somehow I'll light the apartment on fire. I really should get over this....
Tasting notes:
The final dough is quite soft. The baked loaf smells really good when baking and the end result is a nice, soft crumb. The bread smells of onion, but the end result is not very strong. I think that increasing the spices or crushing them before baking may lead to a nice end result.
If you are enjoying my bread recipes stay tuned for Vegan Month of Food (Vegan MoFo). The site has not uploaded the new information for this year but I will be blogging about bread everyday in the month of October! Stay tuned!
I am submitting this post to Bread Baking Day and Yeastspotting.
