I’ve been toying with the idea for months, no, years, of getting into the sourdough scene. It seems like an elite group of people that can take care of a starter, feed it, and essentially treat it like a pet. I’ve dabbled with other cultured foods like kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut, and I’ve even fermented some salsa to make it last longer. I think the main hold up I had was having to use plain processed white flour when I had considered myself a whole wheat elitist and made all flour-based dishes using only freshly ground wheat because it’s much more nutritionally beneficial than the processed wheat, which your body uses like sugar. But, as I researched more about sourdough bread I realized that the active starter actually makes the bread flour more digestible and has a lower glycemic index, meaning that it doesn’t spike the blood sugar. So, on my last trip to my favorite sourdough baker he gave me about 1/4 cup of starter and sent me on my merry way.
I called my sister on my way home for advice since she has been baking and cooking with sourdough for several months and had inspired me to try my hand at this. By the time I got home I knew I didn’t have enough time that day to try making a loaf. I needed to buy some flour, which I hadn’t done in over 7 years. I just stuck the plastic baggie of starter in the fridge to await the time when I could use it.
I bought some King Arthur flour as Jim from My Little Bakery in Duxbury, MA recommended. Then I scoured the internet for the best and easiest recipes for sourdough to get me started. I figured that if I started simply and successfully, then I could keep advancing the recipe until I found what works to get the kind of loaf I desired. If you’ve had a loaf of sourdough bread from My Little Bakery in Duxbury or from Noble Bread in Phoenix, then you know the source of my inspiration. Those are the perfect loaves: the crunchy exterior with a soft, chewy, slightly sour middle that just makes your mouth sing happy praises to the wonderful baker.
I found a recipe that looked simple enough. I fed my starter, waited several hours until it was happy and bubbly and proceeded to follow the recipe. This particular recipe called for olive oil in addition to the starter, flour, water and salt. Being unfamiliar with a typical sourdough recipe, I didn’t know if it was normal or not. I also started with feeding the starter in the morning and baking and eating it in the evening. Regrettably, I don’t have a picture of the result. It was a decent loaf, pale without the nice crusty exterior, and soft and chewy in the inside. It definitely was a very basic loaf but lacked the big bubbly air pockets, chewy texture, and crusty brown exterior that I was looking for.
After looking at more recipes I found that the olive oil makes for a softer and tighter crumb, which means that it doesn’t have those big air pockets or chewy texture that is particular to the classic artisan loaf I was going for.
Over the course of the next few weeks I experimented with different recipes and methods to get the loaf that I wanted. Most recipes called for a dutch oven to achieve the perfect crust. Professional bakers have a specific oven to get this crust. It injects steam during baking to provide the moisture needed to keep the crust soft while the loaf expands before letting the stream dissipate and allow the loaf to brown. I didn’t have one so I researched alternatives. One way I tried was to generously spray the loaf with water just before putting it in the oven and then again 5 minutes after baking. That gave me the right crust, but the loaf was kind of flat.
I also learned that I needed to “score” or cut the loaf to allow the gases to escape and the bread to rise from the inside. So I began cutting my loaves. This was a difficult step to master. When I would score my loaves, the bread would kind of deflate. The loaf rose a bit more, but it wasn’t the pretty scored loaves you see online and buy from the bakery.
You can barely see the lines from the scoring.
I finally decided that I wouldn’t be able to get the loaf I wanted without a dutch oven. So I broke down and bought one on Amazon.
This was a game changer. The loaves would rise and I was getting the chewy airy crumb I wanted…almost. At this point I was struggling to get the baking time right to make sure it was cooked all the way through. I cooked for 25 minutes with the lid on and then I tried using a thermometer to make sure the inside was 205-210 degrees F like the recipes all say. I used two different thermometers and they all read at least 210 when I took it out if the oven but when I cut it open it was still doughy in the middle. This was happening time after time, no matter how deep or where I inserted the thermometer. And my scoring was only mediocre.
I decided to divide the dough from one large loaf into two smaller loaves. After playing around with baking times and buying a special scoring instrument called a “lame” I perfected my loaves. I finally achieved my perfect loaf! To be fair, my idea of perfect may differ from your idea and different ovens and kitchens can produce different results so you have to do what works best for you to achieve the results you want. Sourdough starters can be different from region to region, and apparently San Francisco has some of the best tasting naturally occurring natural yeast, although I’ve never tried it so I can’t compare. But this recipe has worked and produced some delicious tasting bread from my own kitchen! And now I have become one of those people that feeds and treats her sourdough starter like a pet… ??♀️??♀️
Before you get started you need to get your starter active and happy. I keep mine in the refrigerator until I want to use it. I use it every day or every other day so it stays pretty active. If this isn’t the case for yours, do what you need to do to get it active. About 3-4 hours before I want to make my bread I take my starter out of the refrigerator and add double the amount of ingredients as I’ll be using for my bread. Since the recipe calls for 50 grams of starter, I add 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water.
Without further ado, here’s my recipe:
Ingredients:
- 100 grams of sourdough starter
- 350 grams filtered water. (Don’t use chlorinated tap water as the chlorine adversely affects the organisms in the natural yeast starter.)
- 50 grams whole wheat
- 100 grams King Arthur flour
- Another 350 grams of King Arthur flour
- 13 grams Himalayan pink salt (if using conventional processed salt use only 10 grams)
- Another 20 grams of filtered water
Directions:
1. Measure out 100g starter into a large glass bowl. Avoid using metal as much as possible as it can negatively affect the organisms in the yeast.
2. Add 350g of water to the bowl and gently mix the starter and water together until the water looks milky.
3. Add 50g whole wheat flour and 100 grams of the King Arthur flour to the bowl and gently stir together until well combined.
4. Add remaining 350g of King Arthur flour and stir to combine. The result will be a shaggy dough.
5. Let dough rest and autolyze for 30 minutes. This is an important step so don’t skip it! This is when the gluten starts developing.
6. Sprinkle 13g of salt on top of dough and add remaining 20 grams of water.
7. Using fingers, start pinching the salt and water into the dough.
8. Once the salt and water are mostly incorporated and there are no more lumps, fold the edges of the dough into the middle a few times and then let rest on the counter covered with a kitchen towel.
9. Repeat the folding and resting for 30 minutes 4 more times.
10. Let dough rest on counter for a couple of hours and then move to the refrigerator to rest overnight (or even 2 nights).
11. The morning of the day that you will be baking your bread, remove bread from the refrigerator to proof or into the oven on the proof setting for 2-4 hours, or until you are ready to bake.
12. When you are ready to bake, put a pizza stone on bottom rack of the oven. Place your dutch oven on the next rack up with the lid off and preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit on convection setting.
13. Once the oven is preheated, flour a cutting board and dough knife. Pull the edges of the dough away from the bowl and turn over onto cutting board. You want the side that was on top in the bowl to be touching the floured cutting board.
14. Get 2 pieces of parchment paper ready to use to transfer dough into dutch oven.
15. Use your dough knife to divide the dough into two. Separate the two parts and fold the sides into the middle.
16. Turn loaf over so folded parts are on the bottom and continue to fold the edges under to create more tension on the top of the loaf. Place onto parchment paper.
17. Take dutch oven out of oven. Use a sharp knife or a lame to score the bread down the middle of the loaf, or however you prefer.
18. Place parchment paper with the loaf on it into the dutch oven, put the lid on and put in the oven and set a timer for 25 minutes.
19. After the timer goes off, take the lid off of the dutch oven and let the bread cook another 8-15 minutes until the bread is as golden brown as you want it.
20. Remove bread and parchment paper from dutch oven.
21. Repeat steps 16-20 on your second loaf of bread.
22. Eat bread dipped in spiced olive oil or use it to make a delicious sandwich or just slather it with your favorite butter and eat to your heart’s desire.
