Sourdough Bread

This week for the bread recipe, I’ll be sharing my recipe for a super easy sourdough loaf at home!

You may remember that last week, I shared my sourdough starter recipe with you – this is a very important component in sourdough bread. So, if you want to make a batch of sourdough bread, you will need to make a starter.

This style of bread has gained popularity over the past few years, even being sold at smaller craft/artisan bakeries but what’s the point in that? You can make it home with some time and effort… Don’t get me wrong, it may take you a couple of attempts to get a loaf that looks like a bakery style version but trust me, it’s fully worth it.

The thing I love about this bread is how easy it is to make and the simplicity of the ingredients you need to make such a recipe. All the ingredients I mention below are pantry essentials, so you should have most of them in. This is honestly one of the perfect recipes to make if you’re looking for something to make that doesn’t require a lot of your time, the perfect weekend bake!

Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?

 

Ingredients:

250g Strong white flour.

4g Salt.

125g Sourdough starter.

125ml Water.

 

Method:

Before you get started on the recipe, you’ll want to do some prep. Make sure that you have made a sourdough starter and it’s at the perfect place to work with, weigh up all your ingredients and grab anything else you may need like a mixing bowl and a scotch scraper.

To start on the dough, you’ll want to grab your sour starter and test it to ensure its ready to be used. All you need to do for the test is get a small bowl of water and scoop a teaspoon or table spoon of the sour starter into it – you’re looking for it to float. If it doesn’t, then your starter isn’t correct and you will need to make it again.

Into a clean large mixing bowl, you will want to add the water and sourdough starter and mix together until combined using a spatula or a whisk (whichever works best for you).

Then you can go ahead and add in the bread flour and salt and mix the dough by hand until everything is fully combined and a dough has formed. The thing to note about this dough is the fact it’s fairly wet/loose – this is normal and will partially fix itself later on.

You can the cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave it at room temperature to ferment for about 60 minutes (or until it has risen well).

Take the dough and place it onto a lightly floured or lightly oiled work surface and use a scotch scraper to round and smooth the dough out – you will want to try and not to handle the dough too much, use a scraper to do most of the work. Once you have achieved a smooth ball, set aside for a moment while your prepare the next stage.

For the net stage, you can use a fancy proofing basket which cost £25+ online or a simple hack is to use a medium sized bowl and place a clean cotton tea-towel inside. Flour the tea-towel well with some bread flour. Place the ball of dough into the tea-towel upside down, so the bottom of the dough is showing, then flour the side of the dough you can see with more bread flour and cover with the remaining tea-towel.

Leave somewhere at room temperature and leave to proof until the dough is almost touching the top of the bowl, around 40-60 minutes was the sweet spot for me but that time may vary, depending on the climate of where you live.

When the dough has almost reached completion, you can go ahead and preheat your oven to 230˚c/445˚f – you can also place a small baking pan of water onto the bottom of the oven at this point.

Once it has proofed, you can then go ahead and line a baking tray with paper and place them directly on top of the bowl, then flip it over so the tray is on the work surface and the bowl is on top. Remove the bowl and gently remove the tea-towel (if you didn’t flour the tea bowl very well, it will stick to the tea-towel and ruin all of the work you have put into it).

Take a sharp small blade or knife and cut the dough however you like. I went with a super simple and straightforward cut across the middle.

Then you will want to take a metal bowl, one thats ovenproof and big enough to fit over the dough and place directly over the dough and place into the oven, then bake.

After about 20 minutes, you’ll want to remove the tray of water and the metal bowl from on top of the bread, them bake for the remainder of the time.

Once it is out of the oven, you can then leave it cool completely on a cooling rack.

Slice into it and enjoy!

That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my other social’s – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. The YouTube tutorial will be linked down below.