Family in the baking and how I make our delicious sourdough bread

Our bread making journey started a long time ago. We had some great success and great failures. And even though we “mastered” the yeast based recepies we were quite intimidated by the sourdough. Only recently we decided to give it a try and it turn out to be much easier than they say.

Making the Starter

• Starter = (50g of water + 50g of flour) x 7 days

That’s the entire magic. Just get equal weight of water and flour (I used basic unbleached flour) and mix it. Put aside for a day (in dark, not too cold spot) Next day add more flour and water. Mix. Repeat for 7 days and it’s ready to use.

Keeping the starter alive

• (50g flour + 50g water) x every day
• Or up to a week in the fridge

I heard so many times that you have to feed your starter every single day. I wasn’t ready for such a commitment. Luckily, the yeast can slow down a bit when they are in colder temperatures. Ours is doing just fine with no “food”, waiting for the right moment in the fridge. We bake our breads on weekends, so starter comes out of the fridge Friday night. Sunday night, well fed, it goes back and it seems to like it. Apparently, if you need a longer break it’s ok to put it into a freezer. I haven’t test it yet.

The bread

• 170g of starter + 500g of flour + 9g of salt + 230g of water
• Mix & wait 3h
• Move to rising basket & wait 3h
• Move to hot dutch oven & bake in 440F (25 min lid on + 15 min no lid)

Using KitchenAid stand mixer, cast iron dutch oven and a rising basket (I am sure any substitute can work)

Stir 170g of the starter, +/- 500g of flour, 9g of salt and 230g of water.

Mix on “2” till it’s super stretchy (see: windowpane test). Put aside for 3 hours. Fold couple times. Move to rising basket for min. 3 hours. Longer seems to taste even better.

Heat oven to 440 F with the empty dutch oven inside. When preheating is done, take out the pot and transfer the dough. Cover. Bake for 25 min. Uncover (that’s the most exciting moment!) And bake for another 12-15 min. Enjoy! (I know, you should wait till it cools down…but who can do it?!)