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Easy Sourdough Loaf

This simple, tasty sourdough bread can be made with an easy to follow process that allows you to bake around your busy life.

You can find all the ingredients and tools you knead to make the perfect sourdough loaf with our 'All You Knead Sourdough Kit'

Ingredients

  • 500 g Pasta Dura Bread Flour 
  • 350 g Water
  • 50 g Sourdough Starter (Fed and Bubbly)
  • 10 g Salt (increase or decrease according to your taste)

Method

Mix the dough
  1. Weigh out your sourdough starter and water into a large ceramic or glass bowl.
  2. Mix the water and starter together briefly. Then add your flour and salt and mix whole lot together to form a shaggy dough. (I find a dough scraper the easiest way to mix it as you can keep the sides of bowl clean.)
    The dough will be fairly shaggy and only just brought together (see photo). You might wonder how this will turn into bread, but just wait, time is your friend and the dough will change in around an hour.
  3. Cover your bowl with cling film or a damp tea towel and let it sit for around 1 hour. It's ok if it's a little bit longer, it's not going to matter too much.
    (This process is called the "autolyse" and allows your flour to soak in all the water and become hydrated. You can see how the dough has changed in this photo.)
Forming Up The Dough
  1. After the dough has been through autolyse you need to bring it together into a ball. Work your way around the bowl, grabbing the dough from the outside, stretching it up and over itself, into the centre, until a smooth ball is formed. You shouldn't need more than about 20-30 stretches to form the ball.
  2. Once the dough has formed into a smooth ball, pop the cling film back on and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Stretch & Folds
Aim to do around 4-6 sets of stretches and folds.
  1. For each set, stretch the dough up and over itself 4 times. Leave around 15 minutes in between each set. Again you do not have to be exact with time, but you need to do at least 4 sets over 2 hours.
(I like to be fairly liberal with my timings as I am generally cooking amongst the chaos of family life and therefore sometimes timing does go astray!)
Bulk Ferment
  1. Once you've finished your stretch and folds, place the cling film or damp tea towel back over your dough and let it rest and ferment (a plastic cover is a better option for this stage). 
Note: If your home is warm then your dough will ferment a lot faster and could be done in as little as a few hours. If it's colder, it will take longer, possibly overnight. You will know your dough is ready to move to the next stage when it has *just* doubled in size. It will be fairly wobbly and full of bubbles. You should be able to see large air bubbles under the surface of the dough. You don't want to let it go any further than doubled as it will be over fermented. 
Shaping The Dough

  1. Once your dough has finished it's first ferment, it's time to shape it into either a boule or a batard.
  2. You'll need to flour your counter top with rice flour or semolina for this (we use rice flour because it has no gluten). Try to be quite sparing with the rice flour, you only need a very light dusting.
  3. Use a silicone dough scraper to gently ease the dough out of the bowl. You want it to land upside down on your counter so that the smooth top of the dough is on the countertop and the sticky underside is facing up. This will make it easier to shape.
  4. You want to pull the edges of the dough into the centre and then flip it over so that the sticky side is now underneath. Using the stickiness, gently pull the dough into a tight ball.
  5. You will need a banneton to put your dough into. If you do not have a banneton, then a bowl or basket lined with a floured tea towel is perfectly fine. Make sure your bowl isn't too big though, you want your dough to retain some shape.
  6. Whatever you're using needs to be liberally floured with your rice flour/ semolina. If you're using a banneton - liberally sprinkle it with rice flour/ semolina. If you're using a cloth or tea towel, rub the flour into it to ensure it becomes non stick.
  7. Once the dough is shaped into a tight ball, place it into your banneton smooth side down, so your seam is on the top - this way the top of your dough will get the pretty lines from the banneton.
  8. Lift your dough around the edges to pop a little more rice flour if you feel it needs it. Just try to handle the dough as little as possible and be really gentle as you really want to preserve all the gases and air bubbles that have formed during your bulk ferment.
Cold Ferment
  1. Now the dough is in its "shaping container" cover it loosely with a plastic bag or damp tea towel and place into the fridge. (We use a large plastic bag to cover it - I just reuse it each time.)
  2. Try to leave it in the fridge for a minimum 5 hours up to a maximum of around 36 hours. The longer you leave it the better your bread will be! A longer cold ferment creates beautiful blisters on your crust and a deeper sourdough flavour. It will also ensure your dough forms a skin which makes it easier to score.
Bake
  1. Once you're ready to bake your sourdough, you'll need to preheat your oven to 230C/450F.
  2. Place your Dutch Oven into the oven when you turn it on so it gets HOT. Try to preheat for around 1 hour to ensure your oven is super hot - but you know your oven so just adjust this time if you need to.
  3. Leave your dough in the fridge until the very last minute - placing a cold dough into a hot oven will give you a great "spring".
  4. When your oven is at temperature, take your sourdough out of the fridge. Gently place it onto a piece of baking paper.
  5. Make sure that you make the baking paper big enough to use the edges as a handle to lower to dough into your Dutch Oven.
  6. Gently score your bread with a lame, clean razor blade or knife. At minimum a large cross is sufficient, but you can get as artistic as you like. You can find my full guide on how to score sourdough bread here.
  7. Carefully take your dutch oven out of the oven. Place the sourdough into the pot using the baking paper as a handle. Put the lid on and place into the hot oven.
Tip: If you want to you can spritz your dough with extra water before you put the lid on.
BAKE TIME:
30 Minutes with the lid on at 230C/450F plus
10-15 Minutes with the lid off at 210C/410F

When you remove your dough from the oven, carefully remove it from the dutch oven as soon as possible and place on a wire rack to cool. 
Remember not to cut into your loaf too soon - you'll need to let it cool for at least a few hours (4-6 is best).