A little while ago, I shared my recipe for my sourdough starter. Now I’m going to share my recipe for Sourdough Bread.
Once you have your starter in hand, the hardest part of sourdough bread making is over! The rest is a fairly standard (not time intensive) bread making process that once you’ve done a few times, I’m sure you’ll find yourself fully confident in.
Once you’ve read about the process – or tried it yourself – you can understand why bakeries charge more for sourdough bread! It’s definitely much harder to produce sourdough bread on mass since the whole process takes several days.
Sourdough Bread
Ingredients:
For the leaven:
1 tablespoon active sourdough starter
75 g all-purpose flour
75 g water
For the dough:
1 tablespoon salt
525 g water
700 g all-purpose flour
Instructions:
The night before you want to start your sourdough bread, start your leaven. Combine a tablespoon of active sourdough culture with the flour and water for the leaven. Mix thoroughly, cover and let stand at room temperature overnight.
The next day test your leaven by dropping a few drops in some water – if it floats it’s ready to use.
Combine the salt and 1/4 cup of the water for the dough in a small bowl. Stir occasionally to make sure the salt dissolves.
Combine the leaven and the remaining 2 cups of water for the dough in a large mixing bowl. Stir the leaven into the water. Then stir the flour into the water and leaven with a spatula until you see no more visible dry flour and you’ve formed a very wet dough.
Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes or up to 4 hours.
After the dough has rested, pour the dissolved salt over the dough. Work the liquid and salt into the dough by pinching and squeezing the dough. The dough will feel quite wet and loose.
Then start folding the dough. Grab the dough at one side, lift it up, and fold it over on top of itself. Fold the dough four times, moving clockwise. Let the dough rest 30 minutes, then repeat. Do this 6 times, every 30 minutes for a total of 2 1/2 hours. The dough will start to smooth out and become more recognisably bread doughy as you continue.
After you’ve done all your folding, let your dough rest again for an hour. Your bread WON’T double in size the way non-sourdough bread does, but it should look a bit larger.
Lightly flour your work surface, divide your dough in half and turn it out (gently!)
Shape both your dough sections into loose rounds and then let them rest for 20 minutes.
Dust your loafs with flour and then shape again. Then dust them again with flour and let them rise for 4 hours.
Heat your oven to 260 C. Place your le creuset pot in the oven to pre-heat with the oven. When you’re ready to put your bread in the oven, carefully remove the pot and lid and gently set the loaf in the pot, and quickly score the top.
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes with the lids on, then remove the lids and lower the heat to 230 and bake for a further 15-25 minutes.
When done, carefully remove the loaf from the pot to cool. (And repeat the baking process with your second loaf)
Notes:
Be super careful of your pot and lid. It gets extremely hot in the oven.
Have you ever made your own sourdough bread before?
