Sourdough Bread

This is the magic loaf friends. Start it before you go to bed, wake up, and soon you'll have the sweet but sour smell of fresh sourdough fill your house and heart. But really your mouth. Mmmmmm. Nothing can beat a slice of soft and warm sourdough with a smear of salted butter. Nope, nothing.

This recipe is in grams since grams are a whole lot more accurate than Imperial measurements. You'll get the best results if you use a kitchen scale. However, if you don't have a kitchen scale, you can convert the amount to an Imperial measurement and just try to get it right on the dot! For example, 500 grams of flour is about 2 and 1/8 cups.

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SOURDOUGH BREAD

INGREDIENTS:

• 150 g bubbly Sourdough Starter

• 285 g Water, room temperature

• 500 g Bread Flour

• 9 g Salt

INSTRUCTIONS:

DAY 1:

1. Mix all of the ingredients together with your hand until just combined (about 1 minute.)

2. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.

3. Stretch and fold the dough into the bowl several times for about a minute. (Fold one side of the dough over into the middle of the dough. Repeat with each side.)

4. Cover with plastic wrap and leave it in a draft free space like the oven or microwave overnight.

DAY 2:

1. Preheat the oven to 475°F and place your lidded dutch oven pot inside to heat up. If you don't have a dutch oven, you can heat up a pizza stone instead. (The preheated lidded dutch oven provides a crisper crust as it traps steam for the first part of baking.)

2. Put parchment paper on counter and dust with flour. 

3. Turn the dough out onto the parchment. Don’t punch it down, as you want to keep as many of the bubbles as you can.

4. Shape the dough into a round by pulling the outsides into the middle. Then flip over and pull the outside of the dough underneath the ball as tightly as possible so it will hold its shape well. 

5. Cover with oiled plastic wrap loosely. Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes. 

6. Remove the plastic wrap and dust the top with flour. Slash a few lines or designs with a sharp knife or lame.  

7. Carefully remove the lid from the dutch oven and carefully place the dough into the pot by lifting the edges of the parchment paper and put the whole thing into the pot.  Put the lid back on.

8. Reduce the heat to 425°F.  Bake for 20 minutes. 

9. Remove the lid and bake for an additional 20 to 25 minutes.

10. Immediately remove from the pot and cool on a cooling rack completely before slicing, if you can even wait that long to tear right into it!