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Weekly Sourdough

A basic, beginner friendly sourdough recipe I use almost weekly!
Course: Breakfast
Cuisine: European
Keyword: Bread, Sourdough

Ingredients

  • 375 g water
  • 300 g bread flour
  • 200 g wholemeal flour
  • 10 g salt
  • 1/4 c rice flour for dusting

Leaven

  • 50 g water
  • 50 g flour
  • 25 g sourdough starter

Optional flavourings

  • 120 g pepita
  • 15 g rosemary

Instructions

Day 1 - Make the leaven

  • Start your leaven the night before you plan to make your sourdough. Make the leaven by mixing all ingredients together in a bowl. Make sure the bowl is roomy as the mixture will expand. Cover with a tea towel or plate.

Day 2 - make the sourdough

  • Your leaven should now look bubbly, pinch off a little and place into a bowl of water. If it floats, it is ready to be used. If it's not floating, let it rest some more, check back in 1-2hrs
  • In a large mixing bowl, weigh out 100g leaven and 325g water. Mix together well. Add in the flours and and mix together with your hand until a shaggy dough forms. It's fine if it feels quite dry. Cover with a tea towel or shower cap and let rest ad hydrate for 30mins.
  • Add the salt and 50g of water to the dough. Mix together well, the dough will still feel a bit dry but should feel more homogenous. If it's really dry you can add another 20g of water, but keep in mind it will continue to hydrate over the next few hours and become wetter, so at this stage a drier dough is fine.
  • Sprinkle in your flavours if desired, my go to is pepitas and rosemary fronds. Make sure these are mixed well throughout the dough as well. Cover the bowl with a tea towel or shower cap and let it rest for 30mins.
  • After 30mins, it's time to do your first fold. Wet your hands and starting from the side away from you, grab the dough and pull up as much as you can then fold it towards you. Turn the bowl 90 degrees clockwise and repeat. Keep repeating until you have done a full circle around the bowl. You have finished one fold. Cover and let rest for another 30mins.
  • After 30 mins, repeat the folding process and let the dough rest again for another 30mins. You want to repeat this process for 4-6 times. After the last fold, let the dough rest, covered for another 30mins.

Shaping the dough

  • While the dough is resting for the final 30mins after the last turn. Prepare your bread banneton. I like to wet mine, then let the excess water drip off and dust well with rice flour. If you don't have a banneton, you can use a large mixing bowl lined with a clean towel and dust generously with rice flour.
  • Turn the dough out onto a work surface lightly dusted with plain or bread flour. Wet your hands and your bench scraper. Shape the dough but sliding your scraper under the dough opposite to you to help pull the dough towards you while rotating it clockwise. Repeat until your ball of dough is smooth and the surface is taut. The goal here is to create a uniform ball with good surface tension on the top.
  • Gently pick up the dough by sliding the bench scraper underneath it and place it into the banneton or towel-lined bowl, smooth side down. Generously dust the top of the bowl with rice flour and cover with a tea towel or shower cap.

Day 3 Baking the sourdough

  • After shaping, you can bake the sourdough the day you make it if you leave it out at room temp to bulk ferment for 3-4 hours. I like to place mine into the fridge overnight, and bake it the next morning. In this case, bulk ferment is slowed down by the cool temperature of the fridge.
  • Preheat your oven to 250C, or as high as your oven will go to if it doesn't go that high. It is ideal to bake you bread in a cast iron pot, dutch oven or on a pizza stone. What ever you choose, dust it well with rice flour and place it in the oven to preheat as well. Once the oven is at temperature, let it continue to heat through properly for another 30mins.
  • Take your dough out from the fridge and gently turn out onto a board or baking paper. I like to use my small chopping board that is lightweight, with a handle. As this will be what you use to slide the dough into the oven. If you are baking in a dutch oven or pot, I recommend baking paper so it is easier to transfer later.
  • Using a bread lame or a very sharp knife, make a slash in the dough. If you want to be fancy, you can slash pretty patterns into the dough. If you don't pre-slash your dough, it's hard to control how the bread "ruptures" as the steam escapes during baking.