Sourdough, I have learned, has its own personality and temperament.
Time, temperature, the weather, my mood – it all affects how a loaf of bread will turn out.
I wrote about sourdough starter and the care and keeping of it, on my Green Palette Kitchen website, and you can learn all about that HERE.
There are many sourdough bread recipes out on the internet, and I encourage you to experiment and try a few. I always seem to fall back on the original recipe I created years ago. It’s easy and does the trick.
Warning: sourdough bread takes patience, time, and a whole host of other factors that are at times out of our range of understanding. For example, I have duplicated this recipe a dozen times and come out with a different look and loaf of bread each time. The amount of rise time, how warm it is in your kitchen, and how active your starter is can all affect it.
Nonetheless, it is always good, and if it doesn’t rise too much, I still slice it up and put it in my freezer anyway. It’s always sour, hearty and delicious.
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Rustic Sourdough Bread
- Prep Time: 16 hours
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 16 hours 45 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf of bread 1x
- Category: bread
- Method: baking
Description
There is nothing better than a warm loaf of bread coming out of the oven. Sourdough is a living organism and great for digestive health.
Ingredients
1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup lukewarm water
3 cups flour (a combination of whole wheat and white flour is good or 3 cups white bread flour), divided
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, stir in 1 cup of sourdough starter, 1 cup of water, and 2 cups of bread flour or regular flour. The mix will be like cake batter and will actively bubble. Cover the bowl with a towel, keep it on a warm spot on your counter, and let it triple in size, for about 4-8 hours.
- Uncover the dough and add the 2 teaspoons salt. Mix and knead in the last cup of flour, kneading for a few minutes until the dough turns into a ball. Cover again and let rise to double in size, about 4-6 hours.
3. Heat the oven to 475 degrees F and place an oven-proof pot with a lid in the oven to heat up (I use a le Creuset round pot. Be sure to take the plastic handle off the top since it might get too hot and melt). Once heated, remove the pan and brush the bottom of the pot lightly with oil. Place dough inside and bake covered 30 minutes. Carefully remove the lid and continue baking for another 15 minutes. The bread should be puffy and golden.
4. Remove the pan from the oven and place the bread onto a cookie sheet to cool. And please, cut a slice now and enjoy warm with some Irish butter :).
