Classic Sourdough Loaf (and Extra Sourdough Tips and Tricks!)
Introduction: Classic Sourdough Loaf (and Extra Sourdough Tips and Tricks!)
This is my tried and tested sourdough loaf, learned both from a family friend and a number of different online chefs and resources! Follow the recipe and you'll end up with a beautiful and tasty sourdough with a golden crust, feel free to ask any questions in the comments, and share photos if you make it!
Supplies
Necessary Supplies:
Sourdough Starter (or about 7g dried yeast)
Bread Flour
Water
Salt
Large Bowl
Dutch Oven/Thick Walled Cooking Pot
Sharp Knife
Ice Cube
Cling Film/Tea Towel
Optional:
Sunflower Seeds
Poppy Seeds
Proving Basket
Baking Sheet
Dough Scraper
Step 1: Rehydrating/Waking Up Your Starter
If you have instant yeast skip this step.
If you're making this with sourdough starter, you'll need to wake up your starter. I do this by mixing my starter with bread flour and water, in a 1:1:1 ratio. For this loaf, I needed 200g starter total, so I mixed 80g starter with 80g bread flour and then 80g water. Leave it in a warm space overnight and the following day it will be nice and bubbly and ready to use.
If you don't have enough starter, just do a 1:1:1 ratio with whatever you have, leave it overnight, and then repeat the process the following day.
(tip: If you don't want to make bread regularly, just dehydrate your started by spreading it thinly on baking paper and waiting for it to dry. Then, whenever you need any, just re-hydrate it with equal weight of water! Last three photos are of me rehydrating my starter)
Step 2: Mixing and Kneading
When your starter is ready, put 1 part starter (200g), to 2 parts water (400g), to 3 parts flour (600g), in a bowl and mix it all together (pic 1) Leave it for half an hour to rest and it will become more smooth. Then dissolve some salt (2g per 100g flour, so 12g for this recipe) in a splash of boiling water and add it to the dough.
Start to mix it all together by lifting from underneath the dough and pushing it back in on itself, as shown in the photos above.
Once the salty water is fully mixed in, scoop it out onto a kitchen surface and begin to knead it. At this point, if you want to, you can add something into the dough like poppy seeds or sundried tomatoes etc, I added poppy seeds to mine, as you can see if you knead it for long enough they'll all spread out eventually! Knead for 10-12 minutes or so or until you can ball the dough up and it keeps its shape. Then put it in an oiled bowl and put cling film over the top, and leave to prove for 3-4 hours in a warm spot.
Step 3: Shaping and Putting in Basket/Bowl
Once it has proved for four hours, turn it out onto a the table/work surface and dust the top with flour. 887
Then flip it and roll it from bottom to top and shape it into a rough ball shape. Leave it under a loose bit of cling film for half an hour.
After you've waited half an hour, the sourdough will have flatted into a kind of pancake-y shape. Roll it up like a swiss roll and tuck each end under. You're trying to build some tension over the surface of the bread here. The first video is the technique I use to build tension, by dragging my hands underneath the loaf so I'm kind of stretching the top of the dough out.
Next, flour your bread basket (or put a tea-towel in a bowl, and sprinkle flour on top of that instead). This will make it easier to get the bread out tomorrow (sourdough needs a long time to rise!) / or later in the day if you started early.
Then when you've built some nice tension on the surface, put the dough top-down (messy side up) in the basket/bowl. If you want to cover it with seeds (this also helps release it from the basket when you take it out later) then run some water over your hand and gently spread it over the surface of the dough. Then lower the dough into a bowl of seeds, the seeds will stick to the dough, then put it seed-side-down in the basked. You can see this technique in the second video. 567