I wish I could claim this recipe as my own, but I cannot. I am not a sourdough bread maker guru. More like stumbling my way through successes and failures as I practice learning the true nature of my sourdough starter. This recipe comes from Jules at Stone Soup - Delicious Healthy Meals In Minutes. If you head over to her site (as I did today to grab the link for the recipe) you'll see a place to enter your email to receive updates. When you do this you'll get two of her e-cookbooks for free. Can't complain about that!
This is another one of those favorite "go to" recipes that I use time and time again and that I make for my family on a regular basis. These recipes aren't fancy, but they are good and when I'm a bit uninspired in the kitchen, not feeling good and overly tired, which has been true a lot lately, these are the dishes or items I find easiest to make and don't require a lot of thinking on my part.
I've decided that when it comes to sourdough baking, a lot of practice and not getting too hyped up if things don't turn out will lend to a much more peaceful kitchen. Unlike using yeast and white flour recipes where you can treat every recipe exactly the same, sourdough starters have a little mind of their own. Depending on the environment they are maintained in, how often they are fed (yep, just like pets, they really do need to be fed and watered preferably about 2 times a day), at what point after the feeding you choose to use the starter, how long you let your dough "sour" and what temperature it is in your home, you will get different results with your recipes. Now for some this sounds like a nightmare, but honestly it's not, it just teaches you flexibility and as you make more sourdough items you learn how to best use your starter.
What I love about this particular recipe is that it's so easy. Honestly, anyone who knows how to make a couple of measurements can quickly throw together the dough for this bread in about 5 minutes. About 8-12 hours later you should have a sticky mass of dough ready to be baked. No kneading ever needs to be done and out of the oven in 45 minutes you have an absolutely delicious, rustic loaf of bread with a crunchy exterior and a soft, slightly sour and a bit moist interior.
I've made this bread countless times over the last year since I first shared the recipe in this post. I probably make 2-3 loafs every week. While it's a little dense in comparison to standard sandwich bread, it still makes great open face sandwiches which I like to put under the oven broiler and melt the cheese and heat up any meat for a great lunch. My husband loves it for his breakfast sandwich he takes with him to work every morning. Even better is it to eat the bread still warm from the oven in big chunks with a nice slab of butter and a big bowl of soup. As it cools down, this is something we are doing more and more often. It's also great as toast for breakfast.
I have yet to encounter someone who really didn't like this recipe. I always try to tell people how easy it is to make as they look at the impressive end results, but they give me that look of "sure... easy for you, but not for me." No, really it's easy for EVERYONE, well everyone with a healthy sourdough starter! If you want to know how to make your own starter, it to isn't hard and only requires flour, water and a bit of patience. You can check out the post I wrote on how I do my stater here. Now lets get to that recipe and yes, this time I have the measurements by volume and not just weight (that's been a big request)! :-) Oh, and just to let anyone know who might be interested, I've also experimented with different ratios of flour and water. In the end I still think the recipe as it is is the best.
One final note on flour in this recipe.
I almost exclusively make this bread with 100% hard winter wheat. The original recipe actually calls for bread flour. There's no doubt about it that the white bread flour will give you a very impressive loaf that will be considerably larger than the 100% whole wheat one and it will be a bread that would be great for sandwiches, however I prefer to stay away from white flour for the most part unless I am entertaining and then I might offer a variety of types of bread. I have made this recipe with bread flour, all-purpose flour, hard winter wheat, soft white wheat, spelt, rye and a combinations of white and wheat. The only flour I don't recommend is rye, at least not 100% worth, even the white whole wheat flour works good, which is uncommon in bread making. The more whole wheat flour you add the denser the bread will be (the more white bread flour, the lighter), but again, I'm not talking about brick hard, it is a very soft bread, just denser than standard sandwich bread. If you have questions about flour feel free to email me.
A couple of helpful tips.
| The two pots I use for baking my bread in. |
One of my helpful hints is down below in the recipe, but I wanted to also include a couple more. One of the fantastic things about making a recipe over and over is you can experiment quite a bit. Besides trying various flours, I've tried different size pots to bake my bread in. If you are looking for a taller bread that is more ideal for slicing and using for toast on an open face sandwich, then having the right size pot can be helpful. If the pot is too large the dough will flatten out some, especially the 100% whole wheat. When I'm baking with all whole wheat or spelt I use my 8" wide (about 3" deep) pot with lid. This is the perfect size to allow the bread to fully expand width wise, while still gaining some nice height so it can be sliced well. When I use all bread flour my pot needs to be larger, because of how significantly larger the bread will rise when baking. For this I use my 10" wide (about 5" deep) pot with lid. For your first time making this recipe, use a large pot (cast iron works best) with a tight fitting lid. Then experiment with smaller pots if you have them. The type of pots I use are either a Lodge cast iron pot with lid or a Le Creuset pot also with a lid. Both work excellent, but with the all cast iron make sure to keep it well seasoned and put some semolina or cornmeal on the bottom before you place the dough in it to help keep the bread from sticking. The final tip is always let your oven preheat for an hour or so. The extra time lets not only the oven get hot, but then you are guaranteed to have a very hot pot as well. I have been disappointed on more than one occasion with my bread when I didn't let my pot get hot enough. No fun.
| This bread is perfect for slicing, just a bit denser with a far crunchier exterior than sandwich bread. |
What You'll Need
1 loaf of bread
3½ cups (487g/16.5oz) whole-wheat flour or unbleached bread flour
1 1/2 cups (300g/12oz) sourdough starter
2 cups + 1tbsp + 1 tsp (412g/15oz) water
2 teaspoons unrefined sea salt
(Salt: This is more than in the original recipe, but with the whole wheat flour I think it needs more salt, use 1 tsp for white flour and increase in the future if you want. You could easily use a whole tbsp. of salt when doing all whole wheat)
semolina or cornmeal, optional
Getting Started
1. In a very large bowl that can hold at least twice the amount of ingredients you measure out add all your ingredients. Mix them together with a spoon or your hand until you have a thick, sticky dough.
2. Cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap and set in a warm place (between 70° F - 80° F, if it's warmer the fermentation and rise will take place faster, so be prepared to bake sooner).
| Risen dough has doubled in size. |
3. Allow to rise/ferment for 8 to 12 hours. Overnight is great or make the dough first thing in the morning and bake it right before dinner.
One hour before baking bread.
4. Place a large oven proof dish with a lid in the oven. Allow the oven to preheat at the highest temperature your oven will go (for me this is 550° F) for a solid hour before baking the bread. You aren't actually just waiting for the oven itself to heat up, but the pan too. I have found that 30 minutes is never long enough to get my pan as hot and my bread has suffered because of it. At an hour I'm guaranteed a hot oven and dish.
30 minutes before baking... if you want...
5. Helpful hint: This is a step you can omit and one I almost never do when I'm making the bread just for my family. In my opinion this step is more about the end presentation than it is about making a successful loaf of bread and actually when using 100% whole wheat it can be a bit messy of a step...
On a large non-terry towel spread a very decent amount of flour. The towel should quite literally be covered in a thin layer of flour. Scoop your risen dough out of the bowl and place in the middle of the flour. Sprinkle the top with flour and then fold over the edges of the dough to form a loaf. On either a second towel or if you still have enough flour on your current towel and the dough isn't sticking, turn your dough over so the rough edges are now facing down. Cover the dough with a towel and allow to set for 30 minutes until the oven is ready.
What I've found is that when I use white bread flour instead of 100% whole wheat this step is far easier to do. The whole wheat dough is far, far stickier and can create some challenges if it starts to stick to the towel. It can certainly be done and it is how I did the whole wheat loaf that is in the pictures you see, it just may take a bit more patience or a lot of flour on the towel, like at least a cups or two. The biggest difference you'll see in the end result if you omit this step is that the bread won't crack in as dramatic of a way when baking and you won't have the pretty white flour on the top. You will still have a gorgeous loaf of bread either way and the taste will in no way be affected.
Time to bake.
6. Pull your hot dish out of the oven and sprinkle some cornmeal or semolina flour (about a tablespoon) on the bottom to help the bread easily come out at the end and also have a nice bottom. Pick up your loaf of bread in the towel and quickly dump it into the pan so that the original rough edges are now back on top. If you skipped this step then just scrape out the dough from the bowl directly into the dish. Place the lid back on top and put in oven. Bake for 30 minutes.
| Before and after. |
7. After the 30 minutes is done, turn the oven down to 400° F. Remove the lid from the dish and bake for an additional 15 minutes.
8. It's done! Pull bread out of pan or turn it over so bread drops out. Allow bread to cool for at least 30 minutes before trying to slice it. Enjoy!
| Sliced 100% whole wheat flour sourdough bread. |
The picture below is one from when I originally posted this recipe. For this loaf I used 100% white bread flour. Although you can't tell this loaf is about 2" taller and wider than the whole wheat one, but with the same amount of ingredients.
