Sourdough was a staple for many settlers and even dates back to 1500BCE. Sourdough was a staple on the wagon trail and during the Klondike Gold Rush. Sourdough was easy to transport and bread could be made without traditional yeast, such as barm, also known as brewers yeast or yeast cakes. Pieces of sourdough dough, called leaven, were often kept and salted to preserve it to save to make the next loaf the following week, which is known as the old dough technique. Then the old dough would be added to the new dough and a piece would be removed once again to be saved which became sour and yielded a sourdough. This type of sourdough was a worker bread, often made by workers and the less fortunate and only used 4 ingredients — salt, flour, water and leaven. Wild yeast grows from the air around us and even from the grain itself, resulting in sourdough.
I enjoy making different types of breads, especially sourdough. Our starter is doing so well — some days it even bubbles out of the jar so I’ve had to switch to a bowl! We will be making a lot of sourdough bread over the next few days! Homemade sourdough is one of my favorites!
This sourdough bread recipe is a traditional one where the dough needs to be pulled, tossed and stretched. I find it a bit more time consuming, but if you like the traditional chewy sourdough, then you’ll love this recipe!
Let’s get started!
Each ingredient is weighed in grams. This is how we’ll figure out our measurements:
• Water will be 80% of the grams of flour being used
• Sourdough starter is 10 to 20% of flour being used
• Salt is 2% of flour being used but I generally just add about 3/4 tsp
If you are using 700g of flour, water will be 560g, starter will be 160g and salt at 14g.
Combine flour, salt, sourdough starter and water. I used 350g flour, 280g water, 1/2 tsp salt and 70g of sourdough starter. Once everything is in the bowl, stir. Dough will be very sticky. Cover and let sit 10 minutes.
Here is the dough after 10 minutes.
Now we will wet our hands because the dough is so sticky and pick it up, and slap it down. You can do this in the bowl or on the counter. I chose to do this slap & fold in the bowl.
Wet hands, pick the dough up and slap it down. Then pick it up again, and slap it down. After a few times, the dough will become smooth. I did this about 6 times.
Here is the dough after this step. Set it in the bowl, cover and let it rest 30 minutes.
Here is the dough after 30 minutes.
We are going to do the same thing as before – with wet hands, pick up the dough and slap it down. Do this about 6 times. Cover and let sit 30 minutes.
Here is the dough after 30 minutes once again. I drizzled with a bit of oil.
Time to do this again! Pick the dough up, slap it down and continue, rotating the bowl so the dough gets picked up from each direction. Do this 4 times. The dough should be much more smooth now and not nearly as sticky anymore.
This is what the dough looks like after folding and tossing it.
After 30 minutes of resting, this is what the dough looks like.
Time to do this one last time. Pick the dough up, slap it down, rotate the bowl and do it again, rotating the bowl each time for a total of 4 times. We decided to do this on the counter so I could wash and oil the bowl for the proofing stage. My daughter had fun picking the dough up and tossing it on the counter! Oh and the dough is so soft!
Place the dough in a lightly oiled proofing container with measurements so you can tell when it has doubled. Since I do not have such a container, I washed my bowl, oiled it and placed the dough back in.
Cover and place in a warm place.
Let proof until doubled in size. This should take 2 to 5 hours. The top of the dough should be rounded. I will be checking the dough every hour by doing the poke test.
Here’s the dough at 357pm — it has been rising for about 2 hours and 27 minutes. It still has not doubled, so I’ll place it back in the warm oven to proof longer.
It’s now 815pm — that means the dough has been proofing now for 6 hours and 45 minutes. It has doubled in size, so time for the next step.
Wet your hands slightly and shape dough into a loaf. Let sit 20 minutes. I reshaped the dough when I placed it in the dutch oven since I did not have wax paper on hand. Dust to loaf with flour. I forgot to dust with flour. I was just so eager to try it, I just went ahead and baked it!
If you have a banneton, place dough in a well floured banneton and cover. I do not, so I will place my bread towel in a bowl that has been well floured and place my dough in. Proof 1 to 3 hours. At this point, you can place in the fridge overnight to proof.
Here is the dough, ready to bake!
The dough sat for 30 minutes.
Place dutch oven into the cold oven and heat to 420F. Once hot, remove from oven and carefully place dough in.
If you turned your loaf onto parchment to score, you can place the parchment with the dough right into the Dutch Oven. Score dough in centre. I do not have the proper scoring blades so I do not score my sourdough.
Cover and bake for 30 minutes.
This is what it looks like after 30 minutes.
Take the lid off and bake an additional 20 minutes.
Remove from pan, place in cooling rack and let cool completely.
Once cold, slice and enjoy! This loaf tastes like a traditional sourdough tastes, is chewy and has all those holes in the crumb that sourdough is most known for. It’s so good!
