Sourdough craze or no, it's always a good idea to learn how to bake your own bread.
Simple Sourdough
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Category
Breads
Cuisine
American
Author:
Chef Tess Hicks
Servings
1 loaf
Prep Time
12 hours
Cook Time
1 hour
If you already have a live and active sourdough starter in your kitchen, all you need is water, flour, and salt. And a Dutch oven!
If you don't, we've provided a recipe for sourdough starter to get you started. You'll need a week to get it ready.
Ingredients
-
¼ cup sourdough starter
- 1 ½ cups warm water
- 4 cups unbleached flour
- 1 ½ tsp salt
- Rice flour, to sprinkle
For the Sourdough Starter:
-
Flour
-
Filtered Water
Tools:
Directions
In a mixing bowl, whisk together starter, water, and salt. If you don’t have a starter ready, skip to step 10 and come back here when it’s ready.
- Slowly add flour, mixing together until a shaggy dough is formed. Cover for 30 minutes.
Knead for 1 minute. Cover and let rise in a 68-72°F room for 8-10 hours until doubled in volume.
- Turn dough onto floured surface. Make a few gentle folds to form into a round loaf.
- Place smooth side down on a rice-floured banneton or tea-towel-lined bowl. Cover and let rise another 50 minutes while oven heats to 450°F, with your Dutch oven inside.
Transfer sough onto a piece of parchment paper, seam side down. Make a cut on the top of the dough at a 45° angle with bread lame or razor blade. Place dough into pre-heated Dutch oven and cover with lid.
- Bake at 450°F for 20 minutes. Reduce temperature to 425° and remove lid. Bake for another 30 minutes.
- Cool before slicing. Store bread at room temperature in brown paper bag for maximum freshness.
For the Sourdough Starter:
Day 1: Mix one cup of flour and one cup filtered water. Stir vigorously, making sure to scrape down the sides and incorporate everything. Place a clean tea towel over the bowl and set aside. Allow it to sit for 24 hours.
Day 2: Discard half of the mixture and repeat the process. Add one cup flour, one cup water, stir vigorously, and cover.
Day 3-5: Repeat the day two instructions for days three, four, and five.
Day 6-7: On days six and seven, do the same but feed it every 12 hours, instead of every 24. It should be ready by now. You’ll know it’s working if it bubbles, and doubles in size.
Recipe Note
Why do you have to remove half the starter mixture? Removing half ensures that the right amount of flour and water is feeding the growing colony of beneficial yeast. Basically, you would end up with a lot of extra starter by the end of the process, and none of it would be mature!