When Don and I had our restaurant, the Copper Mine, one of our customers gave me some sourdough starter. I was too embarrassed to tell her I had no idea how to use it, nor did I understand it needed to be fed. I put it in my refrigerator at home and eventually tossed it out. I have always felt guilty about letting that starter go to waste.
During Covid lockdown, my sister started making sourdough bread first and told me about it. She shared with me the process and her recipe, and before long, I was posting pictures of my loaves on social media, like some bass fisherman showing off his catch.
I soon learned you can surf sourdough bread recipes online and come across dozens of similar yet different recipes and techniques. For the wannabe sourdough baker, it can be overwhelming deciding which recipe to try.
Recently one of my friends asked me on Facebook if the recipe I used was easy. I’ve had other friends reach out to me about the process of making sourdough bread. As I mentioned, there are dozens of places online to teach you how to make sourdough bread, but I have no clue which one to recommend. And the recipe I use isn’t exactly the same recipe my sister first shared with me. Over the last five plus years, I’ve tweaked the recipe slightly. Blame it on all those videos I have since watched.
Instead of giving my friends a link to a sourdough recipe, I thought I would make my own sourdough recipe webpage and if they want, they can check out my link that will lead them here.
So, if you are sourdough bread curious, let’s begin.
WHAT IS SOURDOUGH STARTER?
When we make bread, we typically need some sort of leavening agent to make the bread rise. It might be commercial yeast or baking powder. Both of which you purchase at the store. But with sourdough bread, we use sourdough starter, which is essentially homemade yeast—something we can make at home with flour and water.
It takes about a week to make your own starter from flour and water—which basically involves creating a live fermented culture containing wild yeast. All you need is a clean glass jar, a cloth to cover it with, filtered water (no chlorine), flour, and a digital kitchen scale that measures in grams, because you will want to measure by weight.
It’s been about five years since I made my starter, so I won’t be listing the recipe. But there are dozens of sourdough starter recipes on YouTube and recipe sites, and if you don’t want to make your own, you can purchase sourdough starter online, or better yet, if one of your friends makes sourdough bread, ask them for 100 grams of starter. Since we have to “feed” our starter to keep it alive, your friend can simply give you the discard the next time they feed theirs.
While I won’t tell you how to make sourdough starter, I will tell you how to keep it alive. If you’ve read my later Haunting Danielle books, you will remember how Heather ended up with jars and jars of starter (aka discard) because she refused to throw away the discard after feeding her starter. I’m a little like Heather; I don’t like throwing discard in the trash. But now, after five years of regularly baking sourdough bread, I don’t throw away discard. And I’m not constantly feeding my starter, like some bakers.
In my household there is only my husband and myself, and my husband is not a sourdough bread fan. I bake bread maybe once a month, and when I do, I bake two loaves. I then cut my loaves in half and freeze three halves. When my family comes for a visit, I don’t bother freezing any of the bread. Not only is my grandson a fan of sourdough bread, my granddaughter, who is gluten intolerant like her mother, is able to eat my homemade sourdough bread without hurting her stomach.
So, now onto how I feed my starter.
Between feedings, I keep my starter in the refrigerator in a jar with a lid. Back when I had my knee replacement, and wasn’t doing any baking, it stayed in the refrigerator for a couple months without being fed, no problem. When left in the refrigerator it will develop a gray liquid on top (which is natural; it’s called hooch, and it smells boozy) which I pour off before feeding. Of course, if your starter gets mold or a nasty unpleasant smell, you will have to throw it away, yet fortunately, in five years, I have never had that problem.
When reading instructions on feeding starter, it typically says, each day, or twice a day, remove half of your starter from the jar. The stuff removed is called discard. Let’s say you began with 200 grams of starter. You discard 100 grams and then add back to the jar 100 grams of flour, and 100 grams of warm unfiltered water. Stir well, cover with a cloth, and leave in a warm spot in your kitchen. You have just fed your starter. Basically, whatever you have in the jar to feed, you add in the same amount of water, and the same amount of flour. Therefore, when feeding, if you start with 100 grams of starter, you will end up with 300 grams of starter.
Always use filtered water, chlorine will mess up the fermenting process and warm (not hot or cold) water. Mid to upper 80s, or lower 90s. Not too hot or you will kill it.
When initially building your starter that first week, your discard is usually thrown away. Yet, after it is live and active, some people save their discard in a separate jar and use it in other recipes (my favorite is waffles). But, if you keep your starter on the counter and feed it daily, then you end up with a LOT of discard.
When first starting the sourdough journey, I was taught to keep my sourdough jar on the kitchen counter and feed it daily—some suggested twice a day. If you bake every day, then that might be great advice. But for me, that meant endless jars of discard in my refrigerator or throwing out a lot of flour each week. I have since come up with a system that works for me.
Since I need 300 grams of starter for two loaves of bread, the day I want to make my dough, I feed my starter early in the morning. I begin by adding 150 grams of my starter to a clean glass jar. I will then add 150 grams of flour, and 150 grams of warm filtered water. I stir well, cover with a cloth, and leave the jar in a warm spot in the kitchen until the starter doubles in size. If I do this in the morning, it is usually ready by 2pm. It should be bubbly, and if you take a little bit of starter out and gently set it in some water, it should float.
From what I have read, the best time to use your starter is after it has reached its maximum height, before it starts to deflate. Yes, it will deflate and sink back down in the jar.
If something comes up, and I can’t start my dough before the starter deflates, I will have to feed it again the next morning and start all over. This means I must move all but 150 grams of my starter from the jar and put the rest of it in the refrigerator with my discard. When I have at least 2 ½ cups of extra discard in my refrigerator, I typically make batter for waffles.
So, at my house, the starter is kept in the refrigerator. I don’t necessarily keep my “discard” and starter separate in the refrigerator. Sometimes I will feed all the discard/starter on hand, intentionally tripling the batch, if I want to make waffles or pizza. Discard pizza crust is also easy and delicious.
INGREDIENTS
Flour—what type? I’ve made sourdough bread with white whole wheat flour, artisan flour, bread flour, and all-purpose flour. For a while, my favorite was King Arthur’s bread flour, but I have since switched to Costco’s all-purpose/bread flour. I like the bread it makes, and it’s less expensive. I also use that flour when feeding my starter. But when you initially build your starter (that first week when you are trying to get all that fermentation going) the recipe you decide to use may suggest rye or wheat flour. Yet, after that first week when the starter gets going, you can feed it with regular flour. I use my Costco all-purpose, bread flour.
Salt—The recipe I started with called for sea salt. I got a little fancy and started buying the Hawaiian style fine grain sea salt from Amazon. I like it, but you can use any sea salt.
Olive Oil
EQUIPMENT
Sourdough bread baking kits are available which include many of the items below. Some of the items listed below you might already have.
Cast Iron Dutch Oven 5-Quart.
While others might bake their sourdough bread on a baking stone, or in a regular bread pan, this recipe calls for a cast iron Dutch oven. Don’t use an enamel coated Dutch oven, as this recipe requires preheating the Dutch oven to 500 degrees, and I know my enamel Dutch oven expressly said to never heat it empty, which is required in this recipe.
Glass Jar with lid
You need someplace to keep your starter, and it must be large enough so it can grow to the size you need. Remember, when feeding the starter, you will triple its size immediately, and then it doubles in size.
Bench Scraper
While not essential, the bench scarper (pictured above, first item from the left) makes it easier to shape and move your dough around. The plastic bench scraper, typically smaller, flexible, and not shown in the picture, is often included in sourdough kits. It is very handy to have, as it helps you get all the sticky dough from the mixing bowl to your work surface.
Danish Whisk
I had never heard of the Danish Whisk until I started baking bread. It’s another item often included in kits and is a must have. While it is entirely possible to make sourdough bread without it, and use your hands or a wooden spoon instead, why would you? (Pictured above, second item from the left.
Kitchen Scale
You might already have this in your kitchen. I always weigh the ingredients when making sourdough bread, and the recipe uses grams. (Pictured above, third item from the left.)
Instant Read Thermometer
While it is possible to go by touch for the water and skip on the instant read thermometer, I prefer using the thermometer and keeping the temperature in the upper 80s. (Pictured above, fourth item from the left.)
Bread Lame
The bread lame is used for scoring the dough. It’s basically a holder for a razor blade. This is another item typically included in a sourdough kit. (Pictured above, fifth item from the left.)
Banneton Proofing Baskets
After your dough rises, you will shape the loaf and place it in one of these cane baskets. These baskets are often included in sourdough bread making kits. Mine are round, but they also come in an oblong shape. After you let your dough rise, you will be putting your bread in one of these baskets and then put in the refrigerator overnight to proof. Before adding the dough to the basket, you will flour the inside of the basket. It is recommended to use rice flour, as the dough tends not to stick to the basket. I confess, I’ve never bothered buying rice flour, but I probably should. I use regular flour. Do better than me, use rice flour. When I put the basket with the dough in the refrigerator, I cover it with one of the cloth covers the basket comes with.
Parchment Paper
They make these nifty little silicone sourdough slings to replace parchment paper, but I’ve never tried them, because I’ve read it isn’t advised to heat to 500 degrees, and this recipe starts at that temperature. Personally, I will stick to parchment paper. But you might want to check out the slings.
Pastry Mat
I use a Pampered Chef Pastry Mat. This isn’t a necessity. But I already had one, and since I make two loaves at a time, it is convenient to dump my dough on the mat, in the circle, and then use the bench cutter to evenly divide the dough into two loaves.
Bowls
I use two bowls. One, a large stainless-steel bowl to initially blend my ingredients. A second ceramic bowl, where I put the dough to rise. Dough for two loaves of bread fills half of the ceramic bowl I use. When the dough rises to the rim of my bowl, I know it has doubled, and is ready to be divided into two loaves, placed in the banneton baskets, and put in the refrigerator overnight.
Brod & Taylor Folding Proofer & Slow Cooker
This is definitely not a must have—it is more a luxury. If you really get into baking, you might want to put the proofer on your wish list. I initially bought it not only to rise bread and starter at a consistent temperature, but to make yogurt. While it made yogurt great, I soon discovered I preferred using my Instant Pot to make yogurt. I’ve never used it as a slow cooker, but I love it for raising my dough, because it keeps the dough a consistent temperature, which is handy during our colder months.
RECIPE (for one loaf)
150 grams starter
300 grams warm water
25 grams olive oil
500 grams flour
10 grams sea salt
INSTRUCTIONS
Mixing
I weigh each of my ingredients before adding to my large stainless-steel mixing bowl.
To the large mixing bowl, add the starter, warm water, and olive oil. Stir with the Danish whisk.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour and salt. Blend well. Add the flour and salt mixture to the stainless-steel bowl with the other ingredients. Mix with the Danish whisk. It will be a raggedy dough mixture.
Oil (with olive oil) the bowl you plan to use for rising your dough. Scrape the raggedy dough mixture into the oiled bowl and shape into a ball. It should be blended, but raggedy.
Stretch and Folds
Cover the bowl with a towel and set in a warm place. After thirty minutes, do stretch and folds. What are stretch and folds? It is basically grabbing one side of the ball of dough, stretching it upwards, and over the doughball, without tearing off a chunk of dough. And then moving around the dough ball stretching all four sides.
If that sounds confusing, here is a an excellent video that shows how to do it.
After you finish the first stretch and folds, cover the bowl with the towel, let sit for thirty minutes, and then do another round of stretch and folds. You will do this about four times. Each time you do a stretch and fold, the dough will get smoother and look more like bread dough. After the fourth stretch and fold, cover again with the towel, and leave in a warm place until the dough doubles in size. I’ve found it typically takes around six hours for my dough to double in size.
Proofing
After the bread doubles in size, shape into a round loaf. Then place your loaf into a floured banneton proofing basket, cover with the cloth clover that comes with the basket. Set in the refrigerator overnight.
Baking your Bread
Place your cast iron Dutch oven (lid on) in the oven and preheat to 500 degrees.
Cut a piece of parchment paper that will fit in the Dutch oven, where you place your bread. You want the piece large enough so you can use the edges of the square as handles to set your dough into the Dutch oven, but not so large that you have paper sticking out of the Dutch oven.
Set the piece of parchment paper on your worktop. Take the basket holding dough and flip it upside down onto the center of the parchment paper square. The dough should fall from the basket onto the paper. Tap the top of the basket if it doesn’t fall out.
Score the top of your bread with the bread lame. I’m not fancy. I do a simple X. (*See below how to delay scoring dough for an increase bread rise.)
When the oven reaches 500 degrees, open the oven, remove the lid (It is hot don’t forget to use your oven mitt!), pick up the dough by the edges of the parchment paper, and carefully set the parchment paper and dough into the hot Dutch oven.
Put the hot lid back onto the Dutch oven, turn the oven down to 400 degrees, and bake for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, remove the lid from the Dutch oven, and bake for another 20 minutes, still at 400 degrees
Carefully remove your bread from the Dutch oven and set on a rack to cool for a couple hours before cutting. Don’t be tempted to cut into it the first hour out of the oven!
* If you want to boost the height of your bread, there is a trick I picked up online. Instead of scoring your dough before putting in the oven, let it bake for 6 minutes, and then open the oven, remove the lid, and score the bread. Before returning the lid to the Dutch oven, add a couple ice cubes to the Dutch oven, slipping it under the edge of the parchment paper. But be careful, you don’t want to burn yourself.
Hope this recipe helps. And remember, as you go along in your sourdough journey you will probably tweak this recipe, just as I tweaked the one I started with. And I’ll probably read something new on a sourdough site that I’ll try.
Good luck, and happy baking!
Oh….one more thing. People typically name their starter. Mine is named Madeline, after my paternal grandmother.