Easy Homemade Sourdough
An easy homemade sourdough recipe for fluffy sourdough loaf full of characteristic tangy sourdough flavour.
Servings: 10 slices
Calories:
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Alter quantities (metric only) 10 slices
Here's what you'll need...
- Stand mixer with dough hook fitted or you can mix by hand using a wooden spoon or a Danish dough whisk
- Clingfilm (plastic wrap) or clear plastic shower caps are a great alternative
- Banneton however you can just use one of the loaf tins but flour it well first
- Bread lame or a sharp knife
- Bread sling optional
- Danish dough whisk or wooden spoon
Ingredients you'll need...
Starter - feeding
- 100 g Starter (½ Cup)
- 100 g Plain (all-purpose) flour (13 tablespoons)
- 100 ml Luke warm pre-boiled water at about 35℃
Sourdough
- 420 g Extra strong bread flour protein content 13-14% (3⅓ Cups)
- 80 g Strong white bread flour (⅔ Cup)
- 370 ml Luke warm pre-boiled water at about 35℃
- 110 g Sourdough starter (½ cup)
- 10 g Fine salt
- Oil for greasing olive, vegetable or sunflower oil are all fine
Here's what we do...
Starter - feeding
- The night before you want to make your sourdough, take your starter from the fridge and discard all except 100 grams of it. Then feed it with 100 grams of lukewarm pre-boiled water and 100 grams of plain (all purpose) flour. I usually do this at about 10 pm.
- Give the starter a good mix and leave it on the counter until the next morning.
Sourdough
- The next morning (I do this at around 8.30 am), tip in your flours and then your pre-boiled lukewarm water into your stand mixer bowl and use your dough whisk (or wooden spoon) to mix just until all of the water has been absorbed by the flour and no loose flour remains. Cover with cling film (or a clear, clean shower cap works well!) and set aside for an hour.
- Add your 110 grams of starter and fit the dough hook to your mixer. Leave the mixer to knead for 4 minutes on a low setting.
- Add your salt and leave mix for another 40 seconds.
- Cover again and set aside for 30 minutes.
- Wet your hands and then scoop your fingers under one quarter of the dough. Gently pull the dough up vertically and then fold it back onto itself in the centre. Turn the bowl a quarter turn and repeat another 3 times, i.e. until you are back to the start. This is the stretch and fold method.
- Cover and set aside for 30 minutes.
- This time do 4 coil folds. Place wet hands under the middle of the dough and pull it up. Let the end furthest away from you slip under the dough and then the end nearest you, so that the two ends are under the middle of the dough. Again leave for 30 minutes.
- Repeat again the above step twice more, with a break of 30 minutes in between.
- By now, you will have done one lot of stretch and folds and 3 lots of coil foils with 30 minute gaps in between. Remove the dough from the bowl and then lightly oil it.
- Remove the dough from the bowl, lightly oil it, then return the dough to the bowl, cover it and leave it to bulk ferment.
- Use this calculator to work out your bulk fermentation times (or ask ChatGPT!).My dough was 71.4 ℉, my kitchen was about 20℃ and I left my dough to bulk ferment for 7 hours.Generally, when ready, the dough will have pretty much doubled in size, have a bit of a shiny, slightly domed top, and a few bubbles may be poking through at the edges. You should be able to pull a segment up, and it will stretch into a thin sheath without breaking. This is known as the windowpane effect.
- Lightly flour your work surface and tip your dough out onto it.
- Tip your dough out and take the edges up into the centre to form a ball. Turn the ball of dough over and use your hands to cup it and pull it in a circular motion. Doing this several times will tighten the surface of the dough. This is called pre-shaping. Leave for 30 minutes.
- Gently stretch the dough into a loose rectangle, about 20 cm x 25 cm
- Fold one of the long sides over into the middle and then do the same with the other side so that you have 3 layers on top of each other.
- Starting with the short side nearest to you, roll the dough up fairly tightly. Pinch the ends together.
- Flour your banneton and then place the dough into it with the seam side facing up.
- Cover with clingfilm/shower cap again and place in the fridge (fridge needs to be at about 5 degrees) and leave for 24-48 hours. This cold proof is what gives the dough it's typical sourdough flavour.
- Pre-heat your oven to 250℃/230℃ fan/480℉/Gas mark 9.
- Once the oven has heated up take your dough from the fridge and sprinkle over some flour. Place your bread sling over the top and flip the dough onto it.
- Take a bread lame or a very sharp knife and cut a line about 1 cm deep from one end of the dough to the other along with long side. You can make further cuts in pattern over the top if you choose to.
- Spray the dough with water (this creates those characteristic sourdough blisters on the dough as it bakes).
- Lift the dough using the bread slings and place it in the loaf tin and then place the other loaf tin on top.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Reduce the temperature to 220℃/200℃ fab/390℉/Gas mark 7 (I usually leave the oven door open a little to bring the temperature down quickly) and remove the loaf tin covering the bread.
- Bake for a further 15 minutes until browned all over and the internal temperature of the bread is between 205-210℃.
- Remove the bread from the tin and allow to fully cool before cutting it (the dough will continue to steam inside hence it is important not to cut it too soon).
I found this autolyse step, of mixing just the flour and water first, a game changer when it came to perfecting my sourdough.
The pre-shape is vital; you will find that doing this really helps your sourdough rise when baked.
Supporting Notes
There are lots of hints and tips in my main sourdough blog post to help you create a perfect sourdough loaf - too many to add to this recipe.
If you are an inexperienced sourdough baker I do highly recommend you read the post first, to help you on your way.