When I first began baking sourdough, I came across a lot of different recipes for a sourdough loaf. A lot of them seemed too complicated, and also created quite large loaves. I find this loaf size to be perfect for our family of four. Not too big, and not too small, and usually consumed within a few days. However, it can last a week and freezes very well too! Use this recipe to create a traditional boule or batard :)
SUPPLIES needed to begin:
-Active Sourdough Starter (I have organic dry sourdough starter available in my shop!) This recipe includes instructions on how to reactivate your dry sourdough starter.
-Any type of flour made from wheat. I have experimented with reactivating a dry sourdough starter with many types of wheat flours, including rye, spelt, all-purpose, and bread flours, and they all work perfectly for starter feeds. However, note that for baking loaves and many other types of bread, you will usually want to use bread flour. I use certified organic bread flour, which the microbes generally prefer but isn’t absolutely necessary. Organic flour is free of pesticides which helps to get rid of a lot of the gluten-associated illnesses and discomforts that people experience when eating mass-produced wheat products.
-Water – Avoid using cold water throughout this process, as it will slow down the activity of the starter.
-A pint sized or larger glass jar with a lid (or similar). Given the small volume of the dry starter, you can start the process of reactivating your dry sourdough starter in an average jar, glass, or other similar size container if that’s all you have at the moment.
-A kitchen scale – A necessity for bread-baking.
-Danish dough whisk – An extremely helpful dough mixing tool (I sell my own beautiful locally handcrafted dough whisks!)
INSTRUCTIONS - Day 1
-In a clean jar, combine 5-7 grams of dry sourdough starter (roughly half of the FloatyGoat packet) with 25 grams of warm water. Stir well and allow the dry sourdough starter and water to sit for at least one hour, then stir and combine.
-After one hour, feed the starter by mixing in 20 grams of your choice of bread flour. Mix thoroughly. The mixture will be a bit watery this first time, and we want it this way because the extra moisture and warmth will allow the yeast and bacteria to thrive.
-Cover the jar with a lid. It doesn’t necessarily need to be air-tight; the purpose is to prevent it from drying out or allowing mold spores in.
-Finally, set the container in a moderately warm location. Come back in about 24 hours.
Day 2 and beyond: FEEDING Your active (wet) starter
Time for your starter’s first feed. This is the way you will feed your starter indefinitely: Always feed with a 1 to 1 ratio of flour to water, with the sum of the feed being larger than the amount of wet starter in the jar. For example, if you have 30 grams of starter and water, make sure that your feed is at least 60g total (this would be a 1:1:1 ratio – you can play around with different ratios in the future, for example 1:3:3, 1:5:5, etc). You don’t need to strictly measure your feeds, though it may be helpful in the beginning. Just, as a rule, try to make sure your feeds are always bigger than the starter itself.
Feed your starter every other day for the rest of the week. Once you have a good bubbly rise, you are ready to bake! Mix your dough when your rise is closest to its peak. Once your starter is thriving, you can make the feeds as large as you like depending on your baking needs.
If your jar becomes too full, you can discard some starter and either dispose of it, make some pancakes, or add it to other baked goods for healthy gut benefits J
Your starter can live forever in its jar. For best results, feed it 2-3 times per week, depending on how much bread you want to bake. If you are going away, you can freeze your starter.
If you are planning to make bread today, leave your just-fed starter on the counter for 1-4 hours until it has risen and bubbly and then refer to the recipe for your loaf. But first, make sure you have everything you will need!
Other items recommended for baking:
-Dutch Oven (large cast iron casserole dish) this will be your makeshift baking oven -Kitchen Scale (find on Amazon)
-Large bowl (I prefer glass for breadmaking)
-Dough Scrapers
-Baking/parchment paper
-Scoring Razor
-Banneton or proofing bowl
-Bulk bread flour – can find on Amazon if bulk flour is not available in your area. I recommend using organic flour for breadmaking because, again - pesticides, not gluten, are often to blame for the physical issues many of us have with wheat products.
You can also buy a sourdough baking kit on Etsy or Amazon with some of these smaller necessities, I’ve only listed the things that I find absolutely necessary J
RECIPE/INGREDIENTS for a traditional sourdough loaf
-420 grams of lukewarm or warm (not hot) water
-200 grams of active (risen & bubbly) sourdough starter
-650 grams of bread flour (you can use strong, extra strong, or any type you prefer. Stronger = higher gluten count/more protein so add a bit more water to your mixture with this type of flour.
-15-25 grams of salt – I love a lot of salt. Himalayan and sea salt are a little milder so you may find you’ll want a bit more when using these products.
-Gluten free flour for the end bit (rice flour works great, doesn’t have to be fancy GF flour). If you don’t have GF flour, regular flour is just fine J
THE PROCESS - When you’re ready to bake!
I like to start the process in the evening while I’m making dinner. This way the bread will be ready to bake in the morning.
Add water and then starter to your mixing bowl. Stir with a dough whisk until the starter is mostly dissolved. Then, add flour and mix with your whisk until you have a lumpy sticky ball. Let your mixture sit to leaven (rise) for about 30 minutes uncovered.
After about 30 minutes have passed, it’s time to add the salt. Get your hands wet and add salt over dough. I like to add a few drops of water to the dough while adding the salt. Massage into the dough with your fingers until thoroughly mixed. Use a bread scraper to scrape off sides of your bowl. Leave your dough to ferment for another hour or so.
Now it is time to stretch & fold (See photos below, and also check out YouTube sourdough tutorials for visual descriptions of this action if you are a visual learner like me J) do this roughly every hour or so (the timing on this does not have to be perfect). Stretch and fold your dough about 3-5 times over the course of several hours.
After you’ve done a good amount of stretching and folding, cover your bowl with a towel, cutting board, lid, or cling film and set in a dark spot to proof (rise/ferment) for about 12 hours. The timing on the proofing is also not terribly rigid. If you are in a hurry you could get away with about 8 hours of fermentation/proofing, and if you have lots of time you can refrigerate your dough after 8-10 or so hours and wait a whole day to bake it. Keep in mind that the proofing will be somewhat dependent on the temperature in your home. The warmer the temperature, the faster the bread will ferment.
Morning: Grab a large cutting board or use a clean kitchen surface and dust it with flour - ideally with gluten free flour, but any type of flour will do. Scrape your proofed dough onto a board or countertop for shaping. You will first do a bit of stretching and folding on each side, then flip the dough over and use your bread scraper in your right hand to scrape underneath the dough, while rotating the dough with our left hand, in order to create surface tension (see my Instagram @floatygoatsourdough for sourdough bread shaping visual tutorials, it is hard to describe but much easier to learn when you have seen a visual demonstration).
Then place some parchment/baking paper into your banneton or any shaping bowl you have where the dough can rest for another hour or so of proofing right before baking. I like to use baking paper and add the dough on top of it so that I can then easily transfer it to the Dutch Oven by lifting up all corners of the paper.
Let it sit and proof (rise) a bit more in your banneton for another 45-90 min, depending on the temp in your house. One hour before baking heat your oven to 220-240C/450F. Place your empty Dutch oven with the lid on into your oven to heat it up for about 45 minutes to an hour.
About an hour later, once your Dutch oven has heated enough, take it out of the oven and remove the lid. Be careful! It will be extremely hot. Score/cut the top of your dough with a razor. There are endless scoring designs to experiment, and I recommend scoring at least 1cm deep into your dough. Finally, pick up the edges of the parchment paper and carry your bread dough swiftly into your Dutch oven and place the lid on, and into the oven it goes!
Keep the temperature high (220c-240c). After about 30 minutes in the oven, remove the lid in order to crisp up the crust. Keep the same temperature and let it bake in the oven without the lid for another 10-15 minutes.
Take it out of the main oven, then out of the Dutch oven, remove the paper, and let your loaf cool on a rack for about an hour.
Don’t worry if it doesn’t look perfect the first time! It will still be edible ;)
You’ll soon get very good at it and hopefully you’ll find it relaxing and satisfying. It takes a few loaves to get into the groove, but they always taste good no matter how they look!
Enjoy!