About a month ago I mentioned we had made the perfect loaf of sourdough bread. I promised to share the recipe so after making it several more times to make sure it wasn’t a fluke that it was so fabulous, here it is!
I’ve been making sourdough bread for a while now and have been experimenting with different recipes and tweaking ingredients in search of the perfect bread. I tried out a variety of recipes and some of them were ridiculous the amount of steps and transferring from this pan to that pan. Some of the recipes just didn’t turn out very tasty.
Then we came up with this one after tweaking a few things and it is so delicious. What makes it even better is the fact that it can be made in 10 easy steps! This recipe can be used to make any style of bread you would like: rectangular loaf, baguette, round loaf or even a braid.
If you read our post on making a sourdough starter and gave it a try earlier in the month, by now you should have a sour, bubbling starter ready to bake with. Before you embark on making this recipe, be aware of the time involved and plan accordingly. Because the bread needs to sit out for 12-15 hours to ferment and rise, I make the dough around 7pm at night. The next morning when I get up I bake the bread so we can enjoy our tasty homemade bread for breakfast.
- ½ cup fed sourdough starter (Make sure your starter was fed at least 12 hours prior to when you start this recipe)
- 6 ½ cups flour (We have been using Wheat Montana’s Natural White Flour when making our sourdough bread but you could also use a mixture of white and whole wheat)
- 2 ½ cups lukewarm water (non-chlorinated)
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
Step 1: Give your starter a good stir to get rid of any air bubbles and then measure out ½ cup. (Be sure to feed the starter you’re not using for this recipe so it will continue to grow and ferment for your next use)
Step 2: In a large bowl, stir together the ½ cup starter, 2 ½ cups of water and the salt until it looks like a soupy brown pond.
Step 3: Slowly add the remaining flour one cup at a time while stirring. As the dough starts to get more difficult to stir, I stick in a clean hand and start to mix it by hand while I add the last cup or two of flour.
Step 4: Knead the dough until it is elastic, this takes about 10-15 minutes. Keep a cup of flour close by as you’re kneading in case the dough is too sticky and you need to add a little more flour. If your dough becomes too dry, add just a tiny bit of water.
Here is a video of me showing you how to knead the sourdough and how to make sure your dough has the proper consistency.
Step 5: Once you are done kneading, let the dough rest in the bowl for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile you can get your baking dishes ready but make sure you use glass or ceramic and not metal. I’ve found that greasing my glass bread loaf pans
with coconut oil helps the loaves to pop out easily with no sticking once the baking is done.
Step 6: After the 30 minute rest, form your dough into the preferred form. I usually make two standard rectangular loaves so split the dough in two, form each half into a football shape and then place one in each glass loaf pan.
Step 7: Cover loosely (we use a kitchen towel) and let it sit for 12-15 hours at room temperature until double in size. If you have a warm house or climate, you will find that your sourdough will ferment and rise more quickly. On cold nights here in Montana I’ve noticed that I need to leave the dough out closer to 15 hours to ensure it gets a good rise. I’m always amazed the next morning when I wake up and peek under the kitchen towel covering the loaves to see how much they have grown!
Step 8: Very carefully make several slits in the top of the dough with a sharp knife before baking. If you use too much pressure and are not careful you will cause the dough to sink a little.
Step 9: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and place a pan of water on the bottom rack of the oven. Place the loaves in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour until light brown on top. Another thing I love about using glass baking dishes is being able to see the bottom of the loaf in the pan showing a nice golden brown so I know the bread is done.
Step 10: Remove the bread from the oven, allow to cool slightly and remove from pan. Place the bread on a wire rack so air can circulate underneath and let it cool before storing.
We always enjoy cutting off fresh slices of bread, spreading on some butter and enjoying a tasty homemade treat straight from the oven!
This post shared on: Tasty Traditions, Thank Your Body Thursday, Natural Living Link up, Simple Lives Thursday, The HomeAcre Hop, Fight Back Friday, The Country Homemaker Hop,Simple Meals Friday,Simply Natural Saturdays, Homestead Barn Hop, Mostly Homemade Mondays, Mostly Homemade Mondays, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop , Tuesday Greens, Fat Tuesday, Homestead Abundance,Wildcrafting Wednesday,Fresh Foods Link Up, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways
My sourdough gets that separated crust on the top, that I see on your’s too. Any idea why? And I’ve been using 1/2 spelt flour in mine, and 1/2 white - YUMMY!
I cut the slits in the top of the crust which seems to help as an air vent as it bakes. The majority of the sourdough recipes I’ve seen have this step but I’ve not done it with a non-sourdough bread recipe because standard bread dough is always soft when it goes in the oven. After the sourdough sits for 12-15 hours the outer edge of the dough is hard so I’m guessing that by putting in the slits it helps to vent it instead of the bread splitting open on its own when it bakes. Half spelt/half white sounds tasty! After reading the book “Wild Fermentation” I’m just amazed at the variety of grains you can add into sourdough!
Looks delicious! I’ve been wanting to try sourdough - but I’ve been afraid since I’ve heard such mixed results with starter at altitude. Do you have any tips or tricks for making sourdough at 6,000 feet?
Our elevation is closer to 4000 feet where we’re at now and we haven’t had any issues. We’re looking to move even further out of town which means we’ll be at a higher elevation so this is something I will need to do some research on and come back and share it here when I find out some tips!
Annie,
Your sourdough bread looks so yummy-I just bet it’s great hot out of the oven spread with butter. I have not yet dipped my toe into sourdough, but when I do, I’ll go big (pizza crusts and all).
Thanks!
Our next adventure is to try making a sourdough pizza crust. We’ve tried banana bread, pancakes, and muffins but have yet to try the pizza crust but I think it will be quite tasty!
Great job! If you oil the tops of the loaves or cover with plastic wrap or wax cloth then they will stay nice and soft and you will probably get a higher rise. I noticed that with my sourdough - after just a few hours the top got hard and that seemed to confine the dough from rising more. When I started oiling or tenting plastic wrap (I make sure it’s well adhered all around the loaf pan and then fold pleats at the ends to give room for dough expansion), my loaves were 30 to 50% higher! I also prefer to do two rises - first one is in the pan I mixed it up in (I don’t knead it anymore - the long ferment activates the gluten plenty). I just throw some plastic wrap over the top of the bowl, then punch it down after it doubles, shape and put in loaf pans and oil or cover again for a much shorter rise, then bake!
Your bread is beautiful. I’ve never been able to get my starter right. At the moment we’ve adopted the artisan bread in five minutes a day technique, but I’d really like to try sourdough again. Thanks for linking up to the HomeAcre Hop!
Hope to see you again tomorrow at our new time: http://blackfoxhomestead.com/the-homeacre-hop/
Looks delicious! I need to finally make some sourdough starter…
Love, Love, Love Sourdough bread. The longer you can let it sit before baking the more the gluten in it is changed and no longer will do damage to anyone’s body. I try to get at least 24 hours on mine. Your bread looks delicious. Thanks for sharing at Wildcrafting Wednesday.
Jennifer
This looks delicious - I need to try sourdough.
Looks awesome Anne! Thanks for sharing this on Wildcrafting Wednesday! Hope to see you again today!
http://www.theselfsufficienthomeacre.com/2013/04/wildcrafting-wednesday-14.html
I haven’t made sourdough bread before. Maybe I will give this a go in the next month. I am glad to hear that it turned out so well again. Thanks for sharing on Tuesday Greens!
A couple of questions: why not metal pans? And when you say that the starter should be fed at least 12 hours before, do you mean no more than 12 hours, or no less than 12 hours? Thanks!
Great questions Meg! Everything I’ve read about sourdough says to not use metal pans and to use glass or ceramic instead because the sourdough can react to metal which will mess it up. When you “feed” your sourdough starter you are adding fresh flour that is mixed in with your active starter so the fresh flour will be fermented. The process of fermentation is fascinating but takes time, it does not happen immediately. You could feed your starter anytime in the 12-24 hours prior to using it but not less than 12 hours because it will not all be fully fermented and will not work as well. I highly recommend “Wild Fermentation” if you want to learn more about the basics of fermenting, I initially checked it out from our local library before buying my own copy and it has been so helpful in learning the answers to a lot of questions similar to the ones you asked. Good luck
Thanks! That clears it up. I have a good starter going, and I’m about ready to try out some bread, but I wanted to make sure I got it right!