Beth Lyons

Sourdough Bread Recipe

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Beth

Sourdough rolls cooling

I love to bake, and making bread is one of my favorite activities. Here’s my sourdough bread recipe and instructions for making the starter and the bread.

Do not be alarmed at the wall of text below! It’s actually pretty simple, but it’s a weird concept so you need a lot of words to describe it. 

Starter or Sour
The good news is you only have to do this once.
Take 1/2 cup of warm water and put it in a ceramic bowl (don’t use metal sourdough doesn’t like metal). Make sure it’s a big bowl — the starter will double in size.

Add 1 cup of flour and mix them together thoroughly.
Cover and let it sit on the counter.

The next day just stir it and cover it again.
On the third day you’ll need to feed it more flour and water. Give it another 1/2 of warm water and a cup of flour. Mix it all together and cover and let it sit on the counter.

Now, day 4. By this time the starter is going to be bubbly and a bit yeasty smelling. We’re going to give it just a bit of flour and water today. Use 1/3 cup of warm water and 2/3 cup of flour.

We’re nearing the end of the process! For the next 2 days you’re going to do what will become your standard practice when you’re prepping to make sourdough bread.

Your bowl of sourdough starter is probably pretty full, so we’re going to take just some of it, put it in a fresh bowl and throw out the rest. Seems crazy, I know but trust me.

Take about a cup of starter and place it in a large bowl. Add in about a cup and a half of cool water — about 55 degrees. Mix the starter and the water together. You want a soupy consistency — something like pancake batter. If it’s too thick add another few tablespoons of water until it’s thin. Then add a cup and a half of flour and mix. The mixture should be very stiff — almost like dough. Think biscuit batter. If you need more flour add it in a 1/4 cup at a time. Mix well and cover.

Repeat this process on the next day. As you look at the bowl today you will see that your stiff batter is now more like a thick paste. That’s the wild yeast doing its thing.

Finally, here at day 7 it’s the big day! You can make bread! Or if you don’t want to make bread today, no problem. Store your starter in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks without touching it. I use a ceramic flour jar as my container.

Even if you’re not going to make bread, you need to feed the starter. Here’s how you feed it or prep to make bread with it: The night before you are going to make bread, take the starter out. I make bread on Saturday to bake/eat on Sunday, which means that I take my starter out on Friday night. Got that?

Friday night I open the fridge, take out the ceramic canister and put it on the counter. Done.
Saturday morning I transfer the starter to a large ceramic bowl and add enough 55 degree water to make a thin batter consistency. Then I add enough flour to make a stiff batter. Cover and let it sit on the counter. Then I wash the canister and let it air dry.
About 8-10 hours later I’m ready to make dough! You will use almost all your starter for the bread, but you will save a good dollop for next time. So transfer all but about 1/3 cup of starter to your mixing bowl.
The remaining starter needs to be fed and tucked away. So add about a 1/3 cup of cool water to the bowl. Mix it with the starter and then add in enough flour to make a thick dough. You should be able to pick up the starter with your hand and plop it into the canister. Put the container in the fridge and forget about it for two weeks.

The Bread Recipe
First, this recipe is an overnight recipe. You will make the dough and then let it sit overnight in the fridge. Although I use my scale for bread making, I’ll go easy on you and use measuring cup amounts.

[this recipe assumes you have a stand mixer with dough hook] In your mixing bowl, add 2 cups of warm water (about 80 degrees)
Add  almost all of your starter — leave about 1/3 cup out.
Mix together for about a minute (I do this by hand as the dough hook can slosh water out of the bowl.)
Add about 4 and 1/2 cups of regular unbleached flour
Add a 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour (if you don’t have whole wheat, just substitute regular)

Mix the ingredients together for about 2 minutes. Flip the dough over in the bowl at least once, if you can. It will be sticky but that’s OK. Now, cover the dough in the bowl and let it sit for 15 minutes. This is known as autolyse, and it helps improve the flavor of breads made without oils and sugars.

Now add a tablespoon of salt and mix for 2 minutes.
Again, flip the dough at least once during this 2 minutes. The dough will be a bit sticky but that is totally fine.

Dump the dough on to a lightly floured countertop and then quickly and lightly oil the mixing bowl you just used. Put the dough back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. If it is chilly in your kitchen, cover the plastic wrap with a towel. Set your timer for an hour and go do something else.

Tip the dough back on to a lightly floured countertop and fold it over on itself in thirds and then cover it with the plastic wrap again. Let it ferment for another hour.

When the timer goes off, divide the dough in half and shape them. Are you making French bread loaves? Then make the dough oblong or square-ish for loaf pans or round for boules. Don’t make it the final shape. In other words, don’t handle the dough too much. Cover and let sit for 10 minutes.

In the meantime, take a clean, dry dishcloth and line your pans or baking tray. Then dust the cloth with flour. When the timer goes off, finish shaping the dough how you want. You can be a bit rougher now. You want to get a nice tight finished dough. Place the dough upside down (bottom-up) on the floured cloth. If you are using a baking tray, use some excess cloth as a border between the loaves. Cover the dough and let sit for an hour. When the timer goes off, put the covered dough in the fridge overnight (or for at least 8 hours).

The next morning (or 8-hours later) pull the dough out and let it warm up on the counter for an hour or maybe an hour and half. About 20 minutes before you want to bake, go ahead and preheat the oven to 475. If you have a baking stone, put it in at this point (or if you are like me — you just leave it in the oven all the time). About 10 minutes before baking put a tray of water on the bottom rack. About 3 cups of warm water is good.

If you are using a baking stone, you will gently flip the dough from the floured cloths to an oven peel lined with parchment paper. Otherwise, use oiled loaf pans or a parchment paper lined baking tray. Spray the loaves lightly with water about 5 minutes before baking. Right before baking, score the loaves with a sharp knife and spray with water again.

Put the loaves in the oven and reduce heat to 450. Bake for about 12 minutes and, if using parchment paper, now remove it from the oven.
You can usually slide it out from under the loaves and then that lets the loaves bake directly on the stone (or on the baking tray). At the same time, take out the water pan. Be careful! That is some hot water.

Let the bread bake for another 15 to 20 minutes. Put it on a cooling rack for at least 30 minutes before you dig in.