Sourdough Bread
A simple, basic sourdough loaf baked in your steam oven is a joy to behold. This is how I make mine.
Servings: 1 loaf
Ingredients
- 300 g water room temperature; filtered is ideal
- 100 g sourdough starter fed and active; see notes
- 500 g white bread flour see notes
- 10 g fine salt
Instructions
Mix dough
- Put the water into a large bowl and add the starter. Give it a quick stir just to start breaking up the starter; it doesn't matter if it's lumpy.
- Add the flour and salt to the bowl and put in your stand mixer with the dough hook attachment (or use a large spatula to mix by hand if you prefer). Mix on low speed until a very shaggy dough comes together. It doesn't need to be smooth at all, you just need to mix until all the dry flour is taken up by the water and there aren't streaks of it running through the mixture.
Stretch and folds
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl and cover with a plastic bag, then let it rest at room temperature (ideally 65-68°F/18-20°C) for about an hour. It won't look any different, and that's fine.
- Uncover the bowl and, using the fingers of one hand, work your way around the dough, scooping it up and pulling up and over onto itself. This is called stretch and fold. For this first go, it's going to be really sticky and messy. That's normal. Do about 20 stretch and folds, going around the bowl of dough, until it comes together in a ball. You'll know when the dough's had enough as it'll become very elastic and harder to stretch.
- Cover the bowl again and let it rest for 20-30 minutes, then repeat the stretch and fold (this time, it'll be less sticky and you'll probably only need to do around 10 stretches). Repeat this process 2-3 more times over the following hour or two; you should aim for a total of at least 4 'rounds' of stretching and folding over the course of a couple of hours.
First prove
- Time for the bulk prove. Cover the bowl and set it aside at room temperature for 8-10 hours (longer if it's colder, but less if your room is warmer than 65-68°F/18-20°C. Too warm and you risk overproving and ruining your dough). It will grow to about double the size and smell yeasty, and be slightly domed on top.
- When the bulk prove is done, take out your banneton/proving basket and dust it liberally with rice flour. Set aside while you shape the dough.
Forming
- Turn the proved dough onto your counter (dust with a little rice flour if you're worried about sticking). Shape the dough into either a round or an oval, depending on the banneton shape, by gently pulling and folding the dough onto itself. You don't have to be afraid of it, but don't go punching it into shape either. It should be bouncy and have a lovely structure, and the shaping is aiming to create tension and a smooth surface on one side of the dough.
- Lift the shaped dough and place it, smooth side down, into the banneton. Sprinkle extra rice flour over the surface and around the edges, moving the dough so it gets down the sides as well.
Second/final prove
- Cover the banneton with a plastic bag (or get all fancy and use a plastic shower cap if you prefer), and put it in the fridge for somewhere between 8 and 24 hours. The longer you leave it, the more sourness you'll get, so you can experiment with different times to see what you prefer.
Bake
- At last, time to bake! When you're ready to bake, preheat your oven to Combi Steam, 425°F/220°C, 80-100% humidity (high humidity). If you want to use a baking stone or steel, put it in the oven now for the preheat.
- When the oven is good and hot, put a piece of parchment paper onto a chopping board (if you're using a baking stone) or into the base of a Dutch oven. Take the dough out of the fridge and gently invert it onto the paper so you've got a lovely rounded shape with the rice flour circles on top. Score the top of the bread with a sharp razor or bread lame, and get it straight into the hot oven. For the baking stone, slide the loaf and parchment off the board onto the stone; for Dutch oven just put the entire thing (no lid necessary!) into the oven.
- Set the oven timer for 20 minutes. After that, turn off the steam but leave the same temperature. Open the oven door briefly to vent the moisture out, and turn your loaf around if you like. Bake for a further 15-20 minutes, until it's deeply golden.
- Remove the bread to a cooling rack (take the parchment paper out from underneath it), and let it cool for AT LEAST TWO HOURS. I know you'll want to cut it. I get it. But it's actually still cooking and forming the right structure inside. If you cut it when it's too warm, you'll end up with a gummy loaf of bread after all your efforts.
- Slice and serve, at last! Sourdough bread will keep for a couple of days on the counter, and can be sliced and frozen after that.
Notes
- Why isn't this recipe in cups?! More than for any other baking, I want you to weigh your ingredients here. It's the only accurate method of getting the right dough consistency, so if you don't own a set of scales I'm going to kindly request that now's the time to invest in one.
- Sourdough starter. If this is your first foray into sourdough, you'll need an active starter ferment before you can make a loaf. The bad news is this takes up to a couple of weeks when you're going from scratch! The good news is that it's not hard. The better news is that sourdough is so popular now that you'll likely be able to ask a friend, neighbour or local bakery to share a little of theirs if you just can't wait to make your own. If you are keen to make your own starter, the very best guide I know for it is written by Elaine over at the wonderful site Foodbod. I can't improve on her instructions and I'm not going to try; Elaine's guide to starter is here.
- A mixer or by hand? I use a KitchenAid to do the first mix of my dough, but you really don't need one for sourdough. The only real mixing is done at the very beginning, and only until the dough is lumpy and raggedy, so it's not hard to do with a spatula.
- Banneton/proving basket. I bought my bannetons at my local kitchen store, they're widely available and easy to find online as well. For this quantity of dough you'll need a 'large' sized oval or round. If you don't have a banneton you can use a tea towel set inside a mixing bowl. Dust the towel or banneton VERY liberally with rice flour so the dough doesn't stick to it. I use rice rather than wheat because it doesn't absorb into the loaf as readily, making it less likely for the bread to get stuck in the banneton.
- Flour. Sourdough really needs a 'strong' flour, by which I mean one with a high proportion of protein. All-purpose doesn't really cut it here. Look for a bread flour that's got somewhere from 11-14% protein for the best dough structure (most bread flours will list this percentage somewhere on the packaging). Want to use whole wheat or a different grain? Go for it, but I really recommend you get comfortable with a 'plain' white wheat loaf first. Adding in different flours can drastically alter the flour-to-liquid ratios and the structure of your bread, so they require more understanding of what your dough should look like and how it behaves.
- Scoring the loaf. We score sourdough not just for the pretty effect, but so it can rise to its fullest capacity in the oven. You need a sharp razor blade or bread lame, or, at a minimum, a very sharp serrated knife. Different cuts give different results in the oven and you can get as fancy as you feel comfortable with. Just remember that definite, even cuts work best. For beginners, I recommend a large cross slashed into the top of a round loaf, or a long, single 45-degree angled cut along the side of an oval loaf.
