A couple of years ago, I published a recipe for overnight breakfast rolls.
It has been one of my most popular posts, and I understand why.
They are easy to make, and you can have fresh breakfast rolls in less than an hour after getting out of bed.

I bake them myself almost every weekend.
My kids would never forgive me if I didn’t.

The recipe calls for both yeast and sourdough starter, but the starter is more for flavoring as it can’t win the battle against the more potent baker’s yeast, sometimes called commercial yeast.

These rolls taste great. Otherwise, I hadn’t baked them every weekend, year after year, no matter what my children think.
But I have to admit that I think they miss something.
All you sourdough lovers know what I’m talking about.
Adding sourdough starter to a yeasted dough doesn’t deliver the same taste as if it was fermented with sourdough starter only.

So I thought it was about time I developed a recipe for a super soft and incredibly tasty 100% sourdough breakfast roll.
Or at least something in that direction.

After some struggling (more about that later), I’m proud to present (drumrolls) my overnight sourdough pull-apart bread.

ABOUT INGREDIENTS FOR PULL-APART BREAD

MIXING THE LEVAIN

I have had problems with my wheat starter this summer. It has gone from being sluggish to overactive to grumpy again.
Strange behavior that I have never encountered before.

I have decided to blame it on the weather.

Everybody else has complained about the weather this summer here in Sweden, so I thought I could do the same.

But it’s hard to get any kind of continuity in your baking with a starter like that, and finally, I decided to take some drastic measures.
I discarded almost everything except perhaps one tablespoon and fed it with 3 parts whole rye flour and 1 part wheat flour.

That did the trick.

In a couple of hours, my sourdough starter had tripled in size. For the next feeding, I added 3 parts of wheat flour and 1 part of rye instead with the same great result.
It can still not be considered to be a wheat starter, but for this overnight pull-apart bread, it doesn’t matter.
As there was rye in the dough, I could just as well use a mixed starter.

So I mixed 15 grams of sourdough starter (100% hydration), 15 grams of whole rye flour, 15 grams of wheat flour, with 30 grams of water. That makes 75 grams of levain.
I use to make some extra levain. A small part will always be left in the jar.

As said before, the summer has been quite cold here in Sweden, but this day the temperature was almost 86°F/30°C.
The levain was ready to use after 3 hours. Normally, I use to calculate with 4 to 5 hours at room temperature.

MIXING THE DOUGH

The dough for this pull-apart bread is on the stiff side, about 69% hydration, so I decided to skip the autolyse this time.
Instead, I mixed all ingredients and let the dough rest for twenty minutes before I started to knead the dough in the bowl for 10 minutes minutes.

After an additional 30 minutes of rest, I performed a set of stretch and fold, but that was all. The dough felt quite resistant, so I decided to leave it alone.

BULK FERMENTATION

The dough was bulk fermented for 6 hours at a temperature of 80°F/27°C.
The bulk fermentation took place during the evening, and the temperature had fallen, so I placed it in the oven with the lamp lit only.

Be careful if you want to try this method. It can become a bit too hot if you leave the dough unnoticed.
Therefore I always measure the temperature in the oven during fermentation.

I use to aim for a total expansion of about 75% in volume. But I also want a dough with a slightly domed surface with gas bubbles on top. And if I shake the bowl the dough should jiggle a bit. That means there is lots of gas and strength in it.

Control your sourdough starter — Note that this is not the dough in the recipe.

BENCH REST AND SHAPING

I dumped out the dough on a floured surface and divided it into 6 pieces with equal weight. The total dough weight was 738 grams, so every piece should theoretically weigh 123 grams.
However, you will always lose a few grams, so calculate with 120 grams for each piece.

I shaped each piece into a round. They don’t have to be perfectly round as they will proof into each other in the end.
I placed them in a small, lightly greased oven tray that measured about 250×180 mm/ 10×7 inches.

After that, I covered the tray with cling film and placed it in the refrigerator.

FINAL RISE AND BAKE

The next morning the rolls looked like this.

They had proofed for 8 hours at a temperature of 40°F/5°C.
I brushed them with beaten egg and sprinkled oats and poppy seed on top.

After that, they went into the oven that was preheated to 480°/250°C and was baked for 25 minutes.

FINAL WORDS

It’s always a treat to have fresh bread for breakfast. This pull-apart bread is no exception.

It has a tight, soft crumb with notes from the rye flour. The toppings add extra taste, and you can, of course, decide for yourself what you want to use. I used poppy seed and oats, but why not try sesame seed? Or perhaps some cheese.
The long fermentation with sourdough creates unique flavors and a hint of tanginess that is impossible to get with commercial yeast.
But it requires some time and extra work.
Like most other great food.