Sourdough bread, with its distinctive taste, is a popular choice for sandwiches and rolls. You might think it’s hard to make real sourdough bread, but it’s not. It all begins with the starter. The sourdough starter is what makes the bread rise, in case you didn’t know. Lots of would-be bakers are intimidated at the idea of working with yeast; lots of seasoned bakers are intimidated at the idea of working with natural yeast. That’s what a sourdough starter is, really, just wild yeast that’s been harnessed to do the job of making your bread dough rise.
There are lots of recipes out there for starters. Find one you like and give it about 10 days to build up. You do need to feed it flour and water every day, but just make it part of your morning routine. I keep mine by the coffeemaker and while my morning cup brews, I feed the sourdough starter.
The thing that used to get me about making sourdough bread is the advanced planning. The night before you want to make the bread, you have to create your sponge. This is your starter plus flour and water. Here’s one of my favorite recipes:
The night before you want to bake, mix together, in a large non-metallic bowl:
3 cups of flour with 1.5 cups of sourdough starter and 1.5 cups of warm (but not hot) water. Mix that together and cover with a towel.
The next morning (or about 8-10 hours later) you’ll add more ingredients to make it become bread dough!
Uncover and put the sponge into the bowl of your mixer. You can do this by hand, but I’m pretty happy to have a stand mixer with a dough hook.
Add 1.5 teaspoons of salt.
Add 2 cups of flour gradually, while the mixer is running. Somewhere around a third of a cup of flour at a time works well. Your dough might need more flour — don’t be alarmed. You want to add enough flour so that you have a good stiff dough. The dough should be pulling away from the sides of the bowl. It basically forms a ball around the dough hook. Let it mix for about 3 minutes.
Then put a dusting of flour on your counter top and pull the dough out of the mixing bowl. We’re going to do a little kneading by hand. Knead the dough, adding a little more flour as you go — just enough to keep the dough from sticking to the counter or your hands.
Cover the dough with a cloth and let it rest for about 10 minutes. Use that time to prepare your baking pans. This recipe makes great French bread, so you can use baguette pans or just plain old loaf pans. This recipe will make two nice sized loaves.
Divide the dough so that you get equal amount for each pan. Put the pans in your oven, on the middle rack. Put a large pan of hot water on the bottom rack (or if you only have one rack, on the floor of the oven). I use a brownie pan; it’s pretty flat and hold a lot of water. Close the oven door and let loaves rise for about an hour. Carefully remove the water pan. And then carefully remove the loaves. You don’t want to jar the pans — your bread dough might fall!
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Bake the bread for about 35 minutes at 400 degrees. Let it cool a bit and then have a slice of fresh, homemade bread. You deserve it — you just made real Sourdough bread!