Learn How To Make A Simple Overnight Sourdough Bread

Do you drool over beautiful pictures of gorgeous crusty golden brown loaves of sourdough bread? But does the thought of using a sourdough starter give you anxiety? Does the thought of baking your own bread seem like a complicated and intimidating process that you will never be able to master? There are about as many ways to make sour dough bread as there are people posting pictures online. Most require numerous steps that seem completely overwhelming, and overly complicated, so you throw up our hands thinking there’s no way I can do all that. Today I want to teach you one of the easiest, lazy ways to bake up a loaf of homemade sourdough bread that will have you asking yourself why you never attempted it before! If you thought it was going to be a difficult and complicated process that you could never master…you would be wrong! If you can stir together ingredients, with a little preplanning and some patience, you will be pulling a beautiful loaf out of the oven just like this one.

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Did you know that sourdough bread is one of the healthiest types of bread you can eat? The fermented starter used to make sourdough bread means it contains healthy probiotics and good-for-you antioxidants. It contains less gluten than other types of bread so it might be an option for those with gluten intolerances. It’s even been shown to aid in blood sugar control as well. If you are going to make your own bread, sourdough is the way to go!

Most sourdough recipes require pulling and stretching the dough numerous times at regular intervals, allowing the dough to rest and rise, and rest and rise, to develop the gluten before finally getting it in the oven to bake. But even if you do all of it just right, you can still end up with an unimpressive loaf of bread. It could turn out too dense, not rise very much, and look nothing like the crusty beautiful loaves you see online. And let’s be perfectly honest, most of us are working moms and we are just too darn busy to babysit a bowl of sourdough all day long. We need something that requires very little hands on time that we can easily work into our busy lives. We need an easy-to-do process that consistently produces a tasty beautiful loaf, or it’s just not going to happen. Right?

DAY ONE:

Begin by measuring out all the ingredients. Use a kitchen scale so you get the best results. Weighing out the ingredients and using an active bubbly starter are the two most important things you need to insure you get the best results.

Before we go on, let’s talk a little about the starter for a minute and the timeline so you have an idea of how you can make this work into your schedule. For the best results you want to use an active, bubbly starter. Feed your starter in the morning before you head out the door for the day. Typically a starter reaches its peak about 6-8 hours after feeding it. The colder your kitchen, the longer it will take your starter to reach its peak. When your starter is active and bubbly, stir together the dough and place it in the oven to allow it to rise overnight.

DAY TWO:

The following morning form the loaf and bake it; allow about 2 hours for the forming and baking part, and another hour for cooling to loaf completely.

You can read all about how to make your own starter using just 2 common ingredients. How To Make Sourdough Starter. Or ask a friend who regularly uses a starter if she will share some with you. Typically, the older the starter the sourer the flavor of your loaves. An established starter will give your loaves more depth of flavor than a new one will.

Have you neglected your starter? Did it get shoved to the back of the fridge and forgotten. Don’t toss it out, revive it instead! Learn How To Revive & Strengthen A Sourdough Starter.

When I initially started baking sour dough bread knowing when the starter was at its most robust, bubbly stage and ready to use was my biggest challenge. This is where experience and a careful eye will be beneficial. The most frustrating part of baking bread is that there are no hard and fast time frames. If the temperate in your kitchen is on the cold side, it will take your starter longer to get to its peak. The warmer your kitchen the quicker the process will occur.

I set my jar of starter on a cork trivet and not on the cold granite countertop in my kitchen.

From the pictures above the ideal time to make a loaf of bread with this starter would be around the 6-7 hour mark.

In a large bowl stir together active bubbly starter and warm water to dissolve starter.

Add salt and stir to dissolve into starter water.

Add the flour and vital wheat gluten to the wet ingredients in the bowl.

Let’s talk about vital wheat gluten for a minute. You may not know what it is and why you would even want to use it in your bread dough. I’ve baked up several loaves of sourdough bread and I’ve had pretty good results but I always felt my loaves were a little too dense and not as light and fluffy as I wanted inside. There’s actually some science behind baking sourdough bread and it has to do with the amount of protein in the flour you are using. The higher the protein content the higher the rise when you bake up a loaf.

I bake quite often so I purchase all purpose flour in bulk 25 pound bags. Many bread recipes call for using bread flour due to its higher protein content. But if you’re like me (frugal, ok cheap…LOL) you may not want to store numerous types of flour. So can you get a good loaf of bread using all purpose flour? Yes, you can, by adding vital wheat gluten. When I looked at the flour I’ve been using the percentage of protein per serving was extremely low, only 3%. That is considered a very soft flour. For best results, you will want to use a flour with a protein content between 11%-13%. So rather than buying even more flour and storing it you can make your own bread flour by adding vital wheat gluten to your flour to increase its protein content for superior results; 1 teaspoon of vital wheat gluten for each cup of flour.

TIP: You can find vital wheat gluten in the flour isle, near the yeasts at most markets or check the bulk bins for the most economical option.

The protein in the flour forms a stronger gluten bond and this bond traps the air in the loaf while it bakes giving your loaf a stronger rise. I was skeptical that the addition of vital wheat gluten would make much of a difference, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much better my loaves are turning out since I started using it. Not only are they turning out airier but the flavor is better as well.

Alright, back to our bread, stir to combine all the ingredients until there’s no dry flour in the bowl. The dough will be shaggy and very sticky and should look like the image below.

Cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap or a cotton dish towel.

Place bowl in a warm spot for 12-16 hours. Your oven is the perfect spot for this, just don’t turn it on.

In the morning remove the bowl of dough from the oven. The dough should have at least doubled in size and look similar to the image below.

One of the benefits of a long overnight bulk fermentation is that it produces a sourer tasting loaf of bread. Isn’t that awesome? The lazy way method produces the most flavorful loaf. Gotta love that!

Place a Dutch oven pot with its lid in the oven and preheat to 450℉. 

While the oven is preheating, cover your work surface liberally with flour.

Turn dough out onto the floured surface. Flour your hands liberally and pull dough to stretch it and then fold it in half.

Use your hands to form the dough into a round boule, stretching the dough from the center out and under the loaf, turning the loaf a quarter turn each time as you go. Put more flour on your hands if the dough is sticking to them. This is a high hydration dough so it will be a very sticky dough that you are working with.

TIP: Try not to overwork the dough; handle it as little as possible as you form it into a boule. You want to preserve as many of those gas bubbles as possible that formed in the dough while it hung out overnight. More bubbles in the dough will result in a fluffier, less dense loaf of bread.

Once the loaf is formed into a round boule, transfer the dough onto a piece of parchment paper and cover it with a bowl. I use the same bowl I mixed the ingredients together in. Less dishes to clean up! I told you this was the lazy way to make sourdough bread.

Let the dough rest for 1 hour while the oven is preheating. The dough will flatten out a little and probably won’t look like it did all that much. Don’t worry, that’s normal.

Dust the top of the loaf with flour. This is optional but I think it produces a more artisanal looking loaf of bread like you get at a bakery. If you’re going to go to all the trouble of baking a loaf of bread you might as well make it look fancy, right?  

Use a sharp knife to score the length of the loaf with a ¼ inch deep cut. You can cut on one side like I did, or cut an “X” into the top. This will prevent unattractive blow outs from forming and helps control the expansion of the loaf as it bakes.

OPTIONAL: Use a razor blade to score the top of the loaf with decorative cuts if desired. 

Carefully (pot will be screaming hot) remove Dutch oven pot from the oven. Remove the lid and grab the four corners of the parchment paper and lower dough into the pot.

Put lid back on the pot and place it in the oven. 

Immediately reduce heat to 400℉ and bake loaf for 40 minutes.

Remove lid and bake for an additional 8-10 minutes to brown the crust. The longer the loaf bakes uncovered, the crunchier the crust will get.

Cool the loaf completely on a wire rack for a minimum of 1 hour before slicing into it. Resist the urge to cut into it while it’s still warm. It will be gummy if you don’t let it cool completely. Allowing the loaf to cool completely lets the steam in the loaf redistribute so that when you slice into it you will have nice fluffy slices of bread. Just ask me how I know.

The long overnight fermentation of the dough produces a really pleasant sour taste in this loaf. It also produces an airy loaf with lots of holes but not too many big holes, just enough. The inside is soft and fluffy with a crunchy golden crust with a great chew. This loaf is utterly delectable and the fact that it’s so easy to make means you will probably be baking up some homemade loaves of sourdough bread more often.

This has become my go to method for baking sourdough bread. I love how easy it is to make and I’m having consistently good results with this lazy, easy to do method. It’s the perfect, easy-to-do process if you are new to baking sourdough bread, and it’s an almost fool proof method that even more experienced bread bakers will appreciate as well. It’s hard to go back to a more labor intensive, multi step process when there’s this easier method that consistently produces such excellent loaves of delicious bread.

I keep this delicious Bread Dip Seasoning on hand. All I do is add freshly minced garlic and olive oil. It’s absolutely amazing served with a loaf of freshly baked sour dough bread for dipping! Give it a try…you’re going to love it!

Or keep it simple and grate a clove of fresh garlic; add some Balsamic or Red Wine vinegar, a good quality Olive Oil and freshly ground pepper for dipping. Simple and DELICIOUS!

Let me know if you give this sourdough bread baking method a try and how it goes for you. I’m hoping you have the same excellent results that I do! Go on and hop on the sourdough bread bandwagon, once you try it you will never want to go back to the mass produced, store bought sourdough bread ever again! Especially when you master this easy method!

Did You Make This?

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