How to Bake Sourdough Bread

I confess, I am a carb addict! Not so much the sugar, it’s dough that I crave the most. I adore all things made with dough! And wine and cheese but that’s for another post, LOL.

Since the onset of the Corona virus it’s been almost impossible to find yeast at the grocery store. The bread recipe I typically use to bake bread uses commercial yeast, which is fine when you can easily get your hands on yeast.

If you can get your hands on some yeast, I highly recommend the recipe and method in the link below, especially if you are just starting out with baking your own bread. It’s an easy method that produces gorgeous loaves of bread and takes much less time than baking with a starter. It’s an easy to master method!

How to Bake Bread

However, if you don’t have any yeast on hand and still want to try your hand at baking bread you can do it using a starter. I recommend you read through this entire post so you have a general understanding of the process involved in baking bread totally from scratch using a sourdough starter instead of yeast. It’s not difficult, it just takes a lot longer to get a loaf on the table.

Spoiler alert!!! This is a long post. Baking bread is my passion and I love sharing how to make it.

Don’t let the long post scare you off, baking bread from scratch was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Especially when you break it down into easy to follow steps. The main difference I found with this method and one’s that use a commercial yeast is the length of time it takes. Using a commercial yeast rises the dough in a fraction of the time. Using a sourdough starter takes much, much longer. Hey we all have a lot of extra time on our hands right now being confined to our homes during this virus so it’s the perfect time to give this method of baking bread a try. What else are you going to do?

My dear sister in law, Robyn shared her starter with me at Thanksgiving. She has maintained it for over 10 years! Don’t let the thought of maintaining a starter scare you either, it’s very easy to do if you store it in your refrigerator. Ideally you will want to feed the starter with an equal amount of flour and water (1 cup of each) every week if you store it in the fridge.

Confession, the starter I received from Robyn got pushed to the back of my fridge for several weeks. I was worried it was a goner, but I was wrong! I was able to revive it by leaving it out on my counter and giving it a couple good feedings over the course of a couple days.

Unless you are baking regularly, you are going to end up with a lot of starter! It seems like such a waste to pour out perfectly good excess starter, so I tried this simple Cheddar & Jalapeño pancake recipe. It was a delicious way to use up excess starter!!!

Cheddar Jalapeño Sour Dough Pancakes

Check back often for more recipe ideas on using up excess sourdough starter instead of throwing it out.

I did a ton of research about starters to get a better understanding of how to make them, how to feed them and how to determine when they are healthy and active and ready to use for baking a loaf of bread.

If you maintain your starter in the fridge like I do, you will need to wake it up for baking a loaf of bread. Mine had gone dormant, I had basically almost starved it to death. So I gave it a couple of feedings over a couple of days to wake it up and I was able to get it going again.

A couple things to keep in mind. First, use a rubber band or mark the outside of your jar to mark where the starter is after you give it a feeding. This makes it easy to see if, and how much it has increased in volume.

Second, I found placing the jar in my oven with the light on (do not turn on the heat) created the perfect cozy warm environment that kick started and woke up my starter and got it bubbling and happy again. My starter wasn’t doing much sitting on the counter, I think it’s too cold right now, but as soon as I put it in the oven it started going gangbusters.

I will do a deep dive on starters in another post; how to maintain and feed it, hydration levels, and trouble shooting a starter that is struggling. There’s a lot of science and information I want to share with you but today I want to concentrate on how to bake a loaf of sourdough bread.

If you are curious about why I decided to use this particular baking method, I saw it done by America’s Test Kitchen and decided to give their method a try. It’s a little different than most other sour dough baking methods I found online but I’ve had very good results in the past with many of their recipes. They do some very thorough testing to ensure home cooks get the same good results when using their techniques. So a big shout out to America’s Test Kitchen!!!

Alright, let’s do this! This is my first attempt at baking a sourdough loaf too, so lets see how this method works out.

Start by dissolving 3 oz. of active starter with 12 2/3 oz. room temperature water in a small bowl. I used a whisk to do this.

For best results use a kitchen scale to measure your ingredients instead of using a measuring cup. You will get better results.

In a large bowl stir together 18 1/3 oz. all purpose flour and 1 3/4 teaspoons salt. Add the dissolved starter to the flour/salt mixture.

Stir with a wooden spoon to combine.

Dough will be very shaggy, loose and sticky.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Place bowl in a cold oven. Turn the light on and leave the dough in the oven for 12-18 hours. Yes, 12-18 hours, that is not a typo. The dough should double in size during this time.

I left the oven light on for several hours and then turned it off when I went to bed for the night. The light produced just enough heat to get the yeast cultures really going in the dough.

So are you still with me? Nothing too complicated yet, right? Trust me, this is about as hard as it gets so if you are on board so far, you totally got this!

Now for the fun part. Get out an enameled, cast iron, dutch oven pan. Tear off a piece of parchment paper, spread it out on your counter and spray it lightly with a little non stick cooking spray.

Now to address the dough. Flour your work surface lightly. Gently remove the dough from the bowl and onto your floured surface. Gently pull it away from the sides of the bowl. I used my hands to do this but if you have a bowl scraper you can use it to make this part easier to do. The dough will be very sticky.

Once you have the dough on your work surface, lightly flour your hands and start kneading the dough using the palms of your hands.

This dough doesn’t require a lot of kneading, only about 20 or so kneads.

Pull the dough up onto and over itself from all sides. You are pulling the dough and creating tension on the surface which helps lengthen the gluten in the dough.

Flip the ball of dough over and cup it in your hands, gently turning it and pulling the top of the dough down the sides and underneath.

If the dough is really sticking and you are having issues with it sticking to your hands and work surface add a little flour to your hands and work surface, just not too much. I found using a dough scraper really helped with shaping the loaf and getting it up off the counter.

Once you have shaped the dough into a round ball place it on the prepared square of parchment paper.

Grab the 4 corners of the parchment paper and place the dough in the dutch oven.

Cover the pot loosely with plastic wrap.

Place the pot in a cold oven. Place a metal pan on the lowest rack in your oven; I used a metal broiler pan. Add 3 cups of boiling water to the pan. Close the oven door and let the dough rise for a second time. You will only need to let the dough rise for about 3-4 hours; until it doubles in size.

Adding the boiling water creates a warm, humid environment in the oven and encourages the yeast in the dough to do its thing and grow.

You will know when the dough is ready to bake when you gently press your thumb into it and it doesn’t spring all the way back, the indentation should stay in the surface of the dough. The dough will also double in size during this second rise. It took 4 hours for my dough to get to this point.

Dust the top of the loaf with flour. I found tapping the side of a wire strainer with a spoon gave the top of the loaf a nice even dusting of flour.

Cut a slash down the center of the loaf about 7 inches long and 1/2 inch deep. This is an important step and will produce a beautiful looking loaf of bread. While the loaf bakes it will create steam in the dough. If you have not cut a slit into the loaf you will end up with either a small dense loaf of bread, because the steam was trapped and the loaf couldn’t expand as it baked. Or it will “blow out”, meaning the steam forced its way out and you will end up with a misshapen loaf.

Place the lid on the Dutch oven and place in a cold oven. Turn on the oven to 425 degrees. After 30 minutes remove the lid and continue to bake for an additional 30-50 minutes. Check the temperature after 30 minutes. It took 50 minutes in my loaf to reach the correct temperature.

Check the temperature with a digital instant read thermometer. Loaf is done when it reaches an internal temperature of 210 degrees and the loaf is a deep, rich, golden brown.

Remove pot from the oven. Grab the parchment paper by the corners and lift out loaf of bread. Place the loaf on a wire rack and allow loaf to cool for 2 hours.

Did I mention, this loaf was freaking amazing!!! Best tasting loaf of bread I have ever baked!

TIP: Resist the urge to cut into the loaf while it is still hot. You will end up with a gummy slice of bread. Be patient and you will be greatly rewarded with a delicious slice of freshly baked homemade bread!

A little planning is needed to time it just right so you have a fresh loaf of bread to enjoy with dinner. This is the timeline I followed.

	Bread Baking Timeline
Day 1	Mix up the dough in the evening, and let the dough rise overnight for 12-18 hours.
Day 2	In the morning, knead dough, form loaf, and let the dough rise for 3-4 hours. Bake loaf, cool for 2 hours.

Let me know if you have questions and I will try to help. Just remember that this is a process and the more you do it the better you will get at baking bread.

Please share pictures of the lovely loaves you bake! I love posting and viewing bread porn on social media!

If you are in my neck of the woods and need some starter, I am happy to share mine with you! I have plenty to gift to anyone who needs some ☺️