This recipe is your guide to having your very first sourdough loaf be a relaxing process that yields beautiful and delicious bread.
It's for anyone who thoughtsourdough was too slow, too hard or too complicated.
I get it. Sourdough can seem like a lot of work. You have to feed a sourdough starter. You have to keep checking on it. But it doesn't have to be like this!
This beginner's recipe is an ideal Friday night (lockdown) activity.
You can mix the dough while you're making dinner and then bake it on Saturday morning. That's your Saturday brunch sorted!
You might have seen my Backwards Bread recipe on IGTV (if you haven't, it's a good thing to watch because it will help you visualise the bread making process). This beginner's recipe is similar to the 'backwards bread' method but gives you a chance to spend a little more time with the dough.
You will notice the dough becoming smoother, growing in size and getting more bubbly. You'll be able to get used to the process of making bread, seeing and feeling how the dough changes over time.
Basic equipment
You don't need any fancy equipment to make great bread at home. Here are a few everyday items that you can gather to help you mix and bake your loaf:
- Kitchen scales
- A Dutch oven
- A deep bowl eg. a soup bowl or a small mixing bowl
- A spray bottle with water in it
- A very sharp knife
Loaf timeline
This is a suggested timeline for having a lovely loaf ready on Saturday morning but you can vary it quite a bit.
As long as your dough spends around 12 hours at room temperature, it will be fine. You can also shape it after 12 hours and leave it in the fridge for up to 24 hours before baking it.
The longer you leave it in the fridge before you bake it, the more sour flavour it will develop.
7pm—Mix your dough together.
7:30pm until whenever you decide to go to bed—Fold the dough once every hour.
Overnight—Dough sits on the kitchen counter.
7am—Shape dough, put it into the fridge and preheat the oven.
7:45am—Dough goes into the oven.
8:30am—Loaf is finished!
A note on sourdough starter
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A lot of recipes call for you to feed the starter 4–6 hours prior to actually making the dough, and you most definitely can do this if it fits into your schedule. I find that these additional hours are a major barrier to actually ever getting around to making the loaf.
So, I have a bread hack for you: you can feed your sourdough starter any time up to one week before you want to make your dough. I like to feed mine the evening before. You simply let it rise and then put it in the fridge while it's still nice and bubbly. Then you can use it straight out of the fridge when you are ready to make your dough.
Ingredients
Method
Day 1: Making the dough
- 1.Mix the ingredients: Measure out your starter into a mixing bowl. Add the salt and water. Mix with a wooden spoon to create a milky liquid. Keep mixing until most of the salt is dissolved into the water. Add the wholewheat and baker's flour and mix. It will be a fairly dry, shaggy dough. Now you can use your hands to get the flour nicely mixed in, keep mixing until no dry flour is visible. Then leave your dough on the counter covered with a wet tea towel for 1 hour.
- 2.Hourly folds: After 1 hour, you are going to do a type of fold called a 'stretch and fold'. First of all, wet your hands so that the dough doesn't stick to them. Then simply pick up a corner of the dough, stretch it upwards to about the top of the mixing bowl and then fold it back down on top of itself. Turn the bowl and repeat 5 to 10 times until the dough starts to form more of a rounded shape. You can also lift the dough up, out of the bowl and smooth it with your hands. Then cover the dough with a wet tea towel and leave it for about 1 hour.
Repeat these stretch and folds every hour for the next 1–3 hours, or until you decide to go to bed. You will notice the dough becomes smoother and has more air bubbles each time you do a set of folds. The folds help the air bubbles to disperse more evenly through the dough, so the more you of them you do before you go to bed, the prettier your bread will look on the inside.
- 3.Leave the dough on the counter overnight: When you decide to go to bed, just leave the dough on the kitchen counter, covering it with a wet tea towel. It will continue to develop and grow as you sleep.
Day 2: Baking the bread
- 1.Shape and preheat the oven: The next morning, about 12 hours after you mixed together your dough (11 or 13 hours will also be fine), preheat your oven with a Dutch oven inside to its highest temperature (about 250˚C).
While the oven is heating up, lightly flour your kitchen bench. Do some gentle stretch and folds to coax your dough out of the mixing bowl. Put your dough ball onto the bench. Do more stretch and folds until the dough becomes a fairly tight ball. Then flip the ball over so that the seam side is down on the bench. Turn it around and around, using your hands to make the ball round and neat.
Then get a deep bowl, eg. a soup bowl or a small mixing bowl, and line it with a clean, dry tea towel. Sprinkle a little flour onto the tea towel and onto the top of the dough ball. Then plop your dough ball into the bowl, seam side up. Pull in the edges of the dough in towards the centre to make the ball extra tight. Now put the bowl with the dough in it into the fridge.
- 2.Get the dough ready to bake: Once your oven has been preheating for about 45 minutes, take the bowl with the dough in it out of the fridge. Get a piece of baking paper cut to about the size of your dough ball and plop the dough, seam side down, onto the baking paper. Use a very sharp knife to cut a cross shape into the top of the dough.
Next, carefully get your Dutch oven out of the oven. Plop your dough into the Dutch oven, with the cross shape facing up. Give the dough a few sprays of water with a spray bottle. Then replace the lid and put the Dutch oven back into the oven.
- 3.Baking: Bake at full temperature (around 250˚C) for 10 minutes. Then bake at 225˚Cfor 20 minutes. Next, remove the lid of the Dutch oven and then bake for another 10–15 minutes, until your loaf looks lovely and golden brown.
- 4.Admiring your first loaf: Finally, take your loaf out of the oven and enjoy it! You're supposed to wait until it's cooled down completely but you can also just cut into it after about 10 minutes. It's actually the best when it's so warm and fresh.
