Make bread dough:

• In a large bowl add flour with leaven and water, mix with your hands until it is well hydrated and looks smooth. Cover with plastic wrap or cotton cloth and allow to make autolysis for 60 minutes.
• Transfer to a work surface, without flour, and knead. Combine kneading with resting to get almost a complete developed dough.
• Knead 2-3 minutes and let sit 5-6 minutes. Total time kneading will be roughly 10 minutes without time resting. Before the first rest, add salt and mix with your hands making sure it is completely incorporated.

Add caraway seeds and dried figs:

• Stretch dough over a work surface and add little by little caraway seeds and chopped figs, fold several times to get a homogeneous distribution. Repeat the process until all ingredients are incorporated. Remember not to work dough in excess when adding ingredients, otherwise you can damage dough structure.
• Grease with olive oil a bowl or recipient and put the dough inside. Cover and make a bulk proof for 6 hours at room temperature. My home temperature was70ºF. Turn and fold after 60 minutes.
• Let rise until almost double in sized.
• Dust with rye flour a banneton, let aside.

Shape the dough:

• Preshape into a boule (ball), be careful not to degas too much, and allow to bench rest for 20 minutes cover with a cotton cloth.
• Shape a boule and place seam-side up in banneton. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. To make final proof I used my fridge and wine cooler.

• 1 ½ hours in wine cooler at 57ºF
• 10 hours in the fridge at 39ºF
• 4 ½ hours in wine cooler at 55ºF
• Final proof was 16½ hours with different temperatures
• Preheat oven 450ºF at least 30 - 40 minutes prior to baking with your stone or steel sheet on it positioned on final rack. Put inside a pan with volcanic stones, this helps to get steam in the baking.
• Transfer the bread from the banneton over a wooden board cover with parchment, seam side down. To make scoring we are going to use a sharp scissors. You can see how to make it in the video.
• Place the bread into the oven and pour boiling water over the pan with volcanic stones. Close the oven door immediately to trap the moisture.
• Bake for 20 minutes at 430ºF.
• After first 20 minutes, open the oven door to allow steam goes out, remove the track with volcanic stones with kitchen gloves and reduce oven temperature to 410ºF. Bake for 10 minutes.
• Reduce temperature to 375ºC and bake 10 minutes more. Finally bake with convection at 375ºC for 10 minutes. Bread will get a better crust this way.