This sesame flat bread (芝麻烧饼) is leavened using sourdough and laminated then shaped into long rectangular shape. It is topped with sesame seed and has a mild fennel flavour.
I have adapted it from 小高姐的 Magic Ingredients and have converting it into a sourdough recipe. I have not written down the method as you can follow her youtube video. I used a spray bottle to spray water onto the bread so the sesame seed sticks. My oven max temperature for convection setting was 250C and internal temperature was 270C.
How to convert a yeast bread recipe to sourdough bread recipe?
1. Determine the percentage of sourdough starter to use. I use 25% (pre-conversion percentage).
Flour quantity X 25%= sourdough starter quantity (a)
A 100% hydration sourdough starter consists of 50% flour and 50% water.
2. Flour amount= Total flour – (sourdough starter quantity (a)/2)
3. Water amount= Total water – (sourdough starter quantity (a)/2)
How long does it take to bake sourdough bread?
It really depends on your sourdough starter strain (location), kitchen temperature, amount of sourdough starter used etc.
It is not easy to tell at times especially after shaping it flat so I just estimate it based on other recipes. My 100% sourdough starter (1:1:1 feed) takes 3.5 hours to reach peak with a kitchen temperature of 31C.
If you are following recipes online say from UK whose average room temperature is 18-22C, you might need to halve the fermentation duration.
Crispy Sourdough Sesame Flat Bread Recipe
Ingredients
(a) Dough
350g AP flour
200g water
100g sourdough starter (100% hydration)
12g oil
2g salt
(b) Oil mix
3g fennel
50g oil
40g flour
4g salt
(c) Topping
Sesame seeds
Water
Timeline
1400 Feed sourdough starter (3.5hrs)
1730 Mix dough & bulk fermentation (3hrs)
2030 Shape
2100 2nd Rise (1.5hrs)
2200 Preheat oven
2230 Bake in 2 batches
How was it?
The powdered fennel goes well with it and was quite tasty.
Some of the sesame seed on the sourdough bread were slightly burnt for the first round. It took 6 minute max temperature. As for the second round, it took 6 minutes 230C oven temperature.
The oil mix was too thick for me so I have reduced the flour amount on the recipe ingredients list.