Surely not another Sourdough recipe!

With Covid-19 restrictions hitting, the most common request I’ve had from people in our local community has been for sourdough starter, along with instructions for baking bread. Most people wanted to avoid going to the shops every day and that’s a great reason to bake your own, but home made bread is also so much better than anything you can buy.

I am indebted to Mark Brown and Kate Beveridge of Purple Pear Farm for the foundations of this recipe. If you are anywhere near Maitland NSW then take a look at their legendary courses, including the occasional sourdough master class.

STEP 1:
You’ll need some sourdough starter, also known as ‘mother’.

If you need instructions on making a mother, you can get them here.

This is a large size Moccona jar. I don’t discard any of my starter. I just keep adding to it in between loaves. In summer I keep it in the fridge to slow it down but in winter it lives on the bench. If you see any clear liquid on top it needs some more flour and water. At this size I give it a couple of good heaped tablespoons of flour and an equal amount of water. Guess-timations are fine.

STEP 2: THE SPONGE

Decant some of your starter off into a clean container and give it a bit of flour and water. This is your saved starter for future loaves. Tip what’s left into a large bowl.

Add equal quantities of flour and water to the same large bowl. I’m buying Demeter flour (unbleached and organic) in bulk because it comes in a paper bag and supports local growers. Bread flour or baker’s flour works best but any flour will do. If your water is just warm it will speed things up a bit.

I’m usually aiming for a total volume of around seven cups. That makes a good sized loaf for the tin I use. If I only have a little bit of mother then I’ll make up the difference with flour and water. If I have a lot of mother, as I did for this loaf, then I reduce the flour and water by a corresponding amount.

You don’t need to make the same amount as me. Your starter is 50% water and 50% flour and you are adding it to 50% water and 50% flour. You can scale up or down depending on the size of the loaf you want to make. Easy.

Mix your flour, water and starter together. Don’t worry if it’s a bit lumpy.

STEP 3: WAIT

Your mix needs time for the wild yeasts to multiply. I find that in a warmish home this usually takes about four hours, depending upon how much starter I have added. More starter means a quicker result (another reason not to waste it!). If you want to, you can leave your sponge in a cold oven overnight and move on to the next step in the morning.

When it’s ready, your starter will look nice and bubbly and a little bit poured from a teaspoon will float on top of some water. This one was just starting to float and then sank pretty quickly so I gave it another half an hour.

STEP 4: ADD SALT AND OTHER STUFF IF WANTED

It’s not compulsory to add salt to bread but most people find it pretty bland without it. If you’re concerned about your salt intake try leaving it out and see what you think.

At this stage I also like to boost the nutritional density of my bread by stirring in some delicious bits and pieces.

For this loaf I added (from the top clockwise) nutritional yeast, hemp seed, a good amount of oats, dried kelp, about one dessert spoon of salt, golden linseed, dried moringa  leaf and chia seed. Bread is a great way to incorporate grains and seeds you have grown as well as dried or fresh herbs and edible leaves and foraged seaweed. I have also added dried and pulverised mushrooms, dried fruit, chopped nuts, nut meal and all kinds of other things. It’s fun to experiment and bread is a great way to use up those last little bits of things. I also find that adding things in means I don’t need as much salt, and I can sometimes get away with leaving it out completely.

Of course you can leave all of these out and skip this step if you like, or just add salt.

I always stir the add ins into the sponge and let the whole lot sit for at least half an hour. This softens up anything hard and makes the texture of the final bread much nicer.

STEP 5: ADD ENOUGH FLOUR TO MAKE A DOUGH

Half an hour later and hopefully you can see how the add ins have plumped up a bit. For this loaf I added another three cups of flour. The amount you need will depend upon how much sponge you made in the first place and whether or not you decided to use add ins.

Once you have added your flour give it a rough stir and prepare your pan. Your mix will start soaking up moisture. It’s fine to add your flour a little at a time until you are happy with the consistency. You are aiming for a slightly sticky dough but not too wet. This is one of those things that you are just going to have to play around with. I find that even when I have started with exactly the same quantities, the amount of flour I need to add varies quite a bit. It’s the texture that matters, not being precise about quantities.

I like to use a traditional loaf pan because our bread lasts around four days and we toast it. You can make it any shape you like but you’ll get a better result if the pan you use has some kind of lid on it to trap steam. By stacking one of these enamel pans on top of the other I get great results. I rub the pan with a bit of oil and line it with some earth friendly baking paper. I’ve tried just dusting it with flour or semolina but it sticks. Might be the pan.

STEP 6: THE NEED TO KNEAD

My previous recipe was designed for people too busy to knead and I still use it. The result is heavier than this loaf but I like that in a sourdough. Kneading works the gluten and makes the end result more like bread and less like cake.

Tip the contents of your bowl onto a clean bench and get stuck in. When you start it will look something like this:

You cannot over knead. It’s impossible. The more you work the gluten the lighter your bread will be. There’s no magic time limit because some of us have tiny arms and bodies and others (like me) descended from good Irish stock with arms fit for carrying sheep up and down hills. Any amount of kneading will improve your texture. More is better.

The traditional method of kneading is to push the dough with the heel of your hand and pull the leading edge back towards you with your fingers. If you find this hard going I get great results rolling the dough out like a long sausage and giving it a work out. Then I fold it back on itself and repeat. This takes less energy and works just as well.

Notice there are no great drifts of flour on my bench. There’s a little bit of stickiness in this dough but it still comes away from the surface and my hand cleanly. Resist the temptation to scatter flour around like Christmas snow or your loaf will be as hard as a rock no matter how much you knead it. Moisture matters.

STEP 7: SHAPE YOUR LOAF

Shaping matters. Don’t skip it. You’re going to stretch the ball of dough in a way that helps to line up all the gluten. If you’re making a round loaf on a flat surface, shaping is essential to your loaf standing proud and not collapsing.

Always start with a ball of dough that doesn’t have any weird creases in its bottom. Make sure your bench is nice and clean because you are going to use the traction of the dough against the bench to stretch it. If you have lots of flour on the surface this won’t work.

Put your hands behind the dough like this and drag it towards you, using your little fingers to make sure that edge rolls under. You should see the top of the dough tighten up and the outside edges are pulled under.

Leave it as a nice round loaf or shape it to suit your pan.

You can see how I’ve gotten it near enough to shape and then pressed it well into the tin.

STEP 8: PROVING

This is another step that can either be done on the same day, if you have time, or postponed until the following day. You have two choices:

1. Leave the bread somewhere warm (not hot) to double in size, or
2. Cover it and put it in the fridge overnight

It was late in the day by the time I shaped this one up so into the fridge it went.

I find that bread left to rise will get higher and lighter than bread fermented slowly over night, but as you’ll see the fridge method still gives you a great loaf of bread and it’s so convenient. You can prep your loaf in between getting dinner ready and then bake it for breakfast the next day. Remember that your sponge can also be left to ferment overnight so this recipe gives you lots of flexibility for when you bake. Start by thinking about when you want to eat the bread and work backwards from there. And yes, it is fine to overnight ferment both your sponge and your bread, or either.

STEP 9: PREPARE FOR BAKING

You can see how my loaf has risen but not a great deal. Don’t worry if you see the same. Sometimes I take it out of the fridge and it’s already huge and other times it looks like this. It doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference to the finished result so just go with it.

Slice across the top of your loaf with a really sharp knife. If you don’t do this the loaf will blow out somewhere unexpected as it rises. You don’t need to get this fancy. A simple slash down the centre will do. I just like this pattern. Once you have cut it, spray the top with some water to help create steam as it bakes.

STEP 10: BAKE THAT BREAD

Cover your bread with whatever you are using as a lid and put it into the oven. Turn the oven up to 250 degrees celsius. When it reaches this temperature, turn it back down to 230 degrees celsius. The burst of heat will help it rise. I have compared pre-heating the oven and just putting it in cold and I can’t see any difference.

If you are baking a round loaf a casserole dish or an up ended oven proof bowl works well as a lid. Just put your loaf on a flat baking surface and upend your covering over the top.

Here’s what mine looks like before it goes in the oven, and a photo to remind you that if you didn’t already do so, now is a good time to make sure that your surviving starter has some flour and water to keep it going.

After about half an hour (less for a smaller loaf and more for a larger one) take off the lid and knock the oven back to 220 degrees celsius.

Sourdough needs to be well baked. One of the most common mistakes I’ve seen is people taking it out when it looks the colour of a nicely baked scone. It needs to be darker than that. When you take it out of the oven you need it to be cool (okay…almost cool) before you cut into it. The bread keeps cooking after you take it out. If you cut into it too soon you might get a sloppy middle, and nobody wants that.

If you follow these instructions, you’ll wind up with something like THIS:

Mmmmm. Delicious!

This recipe makes a nice, light bread with an even crumb. If you’re after open crumb recipes, the ones with all the holes in them, you’ll need a different method. But why!? Nobody wants their nice soft boiled egg running through their bread and all over the plate and that stuff is so hard to chew it makes my ears ache.

Here’s what my bread looked like when I opened it up:

Beautiful. Great for sandwiches or toast and just the best foundation for eggs. The crust is that perfect point between crunch and chewy and the add ins give it great flavour and texture.

Make sourdough to avoid the single use plastic, to avoid the daily trips to the potentially contaminated supermarket, to teach yourself a new skill and to feed yourself and others delicious, nutritious food. But most of all, make it for the way it makes your home smell! Mmmmmmm. Fresh baked bread!