Sourdough bread has quickly become one of my favorite things to make. There is nothing quite like biting into a warm, fresh slice of sourdough bread lathered up in grass-fed butter or extra virgin olive oil. Once you make homemade sourdough bread, you will never go back to store-bought bread.
If you are new to baking and want to ease your way into the world of artisan sourdough bread, you have come to the right spot! Continue reading along and I will teach you all you need to know on how to make really great sourdough bread. All you need is a few ingredients, some time, and a little patience. You don’t need any fancy mixers, just your hands – the kitchen’s best tool.
If you are looking for a recipe on artisan sourdough bread made simple, this recipe is for you. It is perfect if you are just beginning your sourdough journey, or are a veteran to sourdough but don’t have two days to make bread. Its light and airy, flavorful, and super simple to make.
I remember when I first started my sourdough journey, I started with this recipe, and while the bread tasted great, it was definitely a bit too toasty haha! I cooked the bread for way too long, as you can see in the photo below. However, over time, your bread will get better and better. A lot of sourdough bread making just comes down to technique, which is achieved through practice. The more sourdough you make, the better your technique will become, and as a result, the better your bread will become.
Every Great Bread Starts With A Strong Starter:
The first thing you will need to start your sourdough is a strong and bubbly, active starter. The starter is going to be the leavening of your bread. Sourdough bread does not contain any yeast, only the wild yeast captured through the fermentation process of your starter. The strength of your starter will also partially determine the sour taste of your bread. This is why it is super important to make sure that you are beginning your sourdough journey with a super bubbly and active starter. It should look like the photo below and have a strong sour, yeasty, slightly sweet, smell to it. You typically want to use the starter after it has been fermenting for about 12 hours. This is typically when the starter is at its peak.
Note: If you are looking for a good sourdough starter recipe, check out my sourdough starter recipe for more info! I’ve laid it all out step by step on how to create your own sourdough starter from scratch. You could also go to a local bakery or buy dehydrated starter online if you are looking to start your sourdough journey right away.
Tips For Making Sourdough Bread:
- Heat: If you find your dough is not rising properly, it could mean that you need more heat. This is why I recommend heating the filtered water used in the dough and warming the oven for a bit and then turning it off during the rising process.
- Bubbly Sourdough Starter: If your loaves are dense or flat, it could mean that your starter was not strong from the beginning, giving the dough the proper yeast and bacteria needed to rise. Therefore, make sure that you are using fresh and active sourdough starter to make your leaven. I like to feed my starter a minimum of 2 times prior to making a leaven with it.
- Leaven: Placing your leaven on a towel or wooden cutting board, as opposed to the cold countertops, helps keep the leaven warm and rise more efficiently. Sourdough is composed of wild yeast and bacteria and this requires warmth.
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Ingredients:
- Organic Whole Wheat Flour: Whole wheat flour will bring more nutrients into the bread and give a stronger sour taste as well as help with the rising process.
- Organic All-Purpose Flour: Making sure that your flour is unbleached is super important for not only nutrient value, but also for the leavening, or rising, of the bread.
- Fine Sea Salt: Using a fine sea salt, as opposed to a coarse sea salt, will aid in equal distribution of salt throughout the loaf of bread and therefore develop a better overall flavor.
- Filtered Water or Distilled Water: Using filtered or distilled water is super important for developing the yeast in the bread! I cannot stress this enough. When water is filtered, it filters out heavy metals, chlorine, sediment, and other impurities from the water. All of these contaminants and impurities effect the live bacteria and wild yeast and can potentially kill it off. This is why it is super important to make sure you are always using filtered water for your bread.
Materials Used:
- Ball jar
- Kitchen scale
- Mixing bowl
- Bread whisk
- Proofing basket
- Bench scraper
- Bread lame
- Dutch oven
- Parchment paper
Building the leaven:
Once the starter is bubbly and active, about 12 hours after feeding, it is ready to be used to make a leaven. The leaven is super important to the overall “sourness” and “fluffiness” of your bread later on. The leaven is basically the “yeast” of your sourdough bread. Since we are not adding yeast,
In order to make the leaven, combine a small amount of starter with flour and water and mix it together in a jar. Make sure that you are using a bigger jar so that the leaven has room to rise. Once everything is combined, lightly cover the jar with a lid and allow it to ferment for 12 hours. I typically make this the night before I am going to bake, therefore, the leaven can ferment and double in size overnight and be ready to bake with the next morning.
Autolyse Process:
Now that the leaven has risen, you are ready to start the autolyse process. This is the first step to actually making the sourdough.
Autolysing is the process of hydrating the dough. You will combine all of your ingredients together, flour, water, leaven, and salt and gently stir them together using a bread whisk. Once you feel as though you can no longer whisk the dough, wet your hand with water, this will help the dough from sticking to your hand, and start pinching and squeezing the dough until it is fully incorporated (about 1-2 minutes). Remember this is a process of hydrating the dough. We do not want to do a lot of heavy mixing right now. It will not look very pretty and that is expected.
Once it is all incorporated together, cover it with a tea towel and place in a warm area for 30 minutes. I typically heat my oven up to 170°F and then turn off the oven and place my dough in there – that way it is warm enough for the dough to rise. Warmth is crucial to the rising process, so if you feel as though your bread is not rising well, try placing it in a warmer area.
Bulk Fermentation: Stretch & Fold:
After 30 minutes, the sourdough should be fully hydrated. It should look pretty similar to how you left it. Next up, perform a series of stretch and folds, about 8 folds total per series. This process of stretching and folding adds a lot of strength and structure to the dough and is essential to any artisan, handmade dough.
Once you have completed the first stretch and fold, folding all four sides into the middle, then four corners into the middle, place a tea towel over the dough again and allow it to rest for 30 minutes. Once that 30 minutes is up, you will proceed with another series of 8 stretch and folds and then cover with a tea towel and allow the dough to rest for an additional one hour.
After 60 minutes is complete, remove the tea towel from the dough and lightly dust the dough and your workspace with some all-purpose flour. You also want to liberally dust your sourdough-proofing baskets. If you do not have proofing baskets, I recommend lining a bowl with some cheesecloth and liberally dusting the cheesecloth to prevent the dough from sticking later on. This is super important!!
Sourdough Proofing Process:
Once everything is properly floured, use a bench scraper and scrape the sourdough out of the bowl onto the floured work surface. From here, begin lightly stretching out the bottom half of the dough. Be gentle with it and pop any big air bubbles you see. After the dough is slightly stretched out and resembles a rectangular shape, take the bottom half of the dough and pull it up to meet the upper middle half of the dough. Then begin folding in the right and left sides of the dough to meet the middle. Once this is complete, roll the bottom of the dough up to meet the top of the dough until a log-like shape has formed. Then fold in the left and right sides again and using a bench scraper, scoop the sourdough into your hand and place the dough into the proofing basket, folded side up.
From here, fold in the seems of the dough a couple of more times in order to add a bit more strength and pop any air bubbles you may notice. Cover with a tea towel and rest for 90 minutes. You could also let it rest overnight in the fridge covered in a plastic grocery bag if you wish for additional fermentation and bake off the next day. This is helpful if you are tight on time as well.
Scoring the Dough:
Once the dough is done proofing, lay it seam-side down on a piece of parchment paper sprinkled with semolina flour. Using a bread lame, razor blade, knife or scissors, score the bread. This allows steam and heat to escape from the bread during the baking process.
Baking The Sourdough Bread:
Preheat the oven to 500° F. with a Dutch oven pot inside of the oven to preheat. The pot needs to preheat for 30-35 minutes prior to baking the bread with the lid on.
After 90 minutes of proofing, lay out the sourdough, folded side down on a piece of parchment paper sprinkled with a layer of semolina flour. The floured side of the bread should be facing up. Take a knife, razor blade, or bread lame, and make any designs you wish. Scoring not only makes your bread look super pretty but also allows heat and water to release from the bread, which is necessary for baking and getting a good spring in your bread.
Once everything is scored and your pot and oven are preheated, place the sourdough into the Dutch oven and lower the heat to 485° F. Bake with the lid on for 18 minutes. After 18 minutes, remove the Dutch oven lid and continue baking for an additional 25 minutes at 465° F.
After baking, remove the bread from the oven and place it on a cooling rack. Allow the bread to fully cool and set up prior to cutting.
My Favorite Sourdough Recipes:
- Sourdough Cinnamon Roll Star Bread
- Sourdough Pumpkin Muffins
- Healthy Sourdough Pumpkin Bread
- Cheesy Garlic Sourdough Pull-Apart Bread
If you try this recipe and love it, I would love it if you would consider coming back to the site to give it a 5-star rating and tag me on Instagram or Facebook! Thanks so much 🙂
Beginners Sourdough Bread
Equipment
Ingredients
Leaven Ingredients:
- 100 g. room temperature, filtered water (78-80° F.)
- 25 g. ripe, bubbly sourdough starter
- 100 g. all-purpose flour
Sourdough Ingredients:
- 310 g. filtered water (92° F.)
- 200 g. leaven
- 400 g. all-purpose flour
- 50 g. whole wheat flour
- 12 g. sea salt
Baking Ingredients:
- 1 Tbsp. semolina flour
Instructions
Build the Leaven:
- Build the leaven using starter, room temperature, filtered water, and all-purpose flour. ***It is crucial that the water is at room temperature as this is going to promote bacteria growth and build up the wild yeast in the leaven.
- Allow leaven to rise for 12 hours at room temperature with a lid loosely applied on top. Once the leaven is bubbly and doubled in size it is ready to use.
Mix the Dough:
- Add ripe leaven, warm, filtered water, all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, and sea salt in a bowl.
- Using a bread whisk, mix everything together. Once it becomes to difficult to whisk, clean off the remaining dough from the whisk.
- Using a wet hand, begin pinching and squeezing the dough until it is incorporated.
Autolyse:
- Set a timer for 30 minutes and cover the dough with a tea towel and allow the dough to rest and fully hydrate at room temperature. ***If your house is cooler, set your oven to 170° F., then turn it off and place the dough to rise in the turned off oven. This will allow the dough enough warmth to rise without it cooking. This is super important!
Bulk Ferment & Stretch and Fold
- After 30 minutes, using a wet hand, perform 8 stretch and folds. This is a process of taking a single side of the dough and stretching it out and folding it over to the opposite side. Be gentle and try not break the dough during this process.
- Once you have stretched and folded 4 sides, continue on to the 4 corners of the dough.
- Once this is complete, take your hand around the side of the dough and scoop your hand under the dough while twisting the bowl. Do this two or three times until the dough is shaped into a smooth ball.
- Cover with a tea towel and allow dough to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, perform the previous steps one more time, stretching and folding 8 times and scooping into a smooth ball. Then set the dough to rest for an additional 60 minutes.
Shaping:
- After 60 minutes flour the workspace, as well as the dough and proofing baskets. ***Be liberal with the flour in the baskets, especially if it is your first time using them. The dough will stick to the basket if it is not properly floured. If you do not have proofing baskets you can always use a mixing bowl fitted with a well floured tea towel.
- Using the bench scraper, poor dough onto floured workspace. Take the bottom half of the bread and lightly stretch it out. Pop any air bubbles.
- Take the bottom half of the dough and fold it over to meet the center of the dough.
- Fold over the left and right side to overlap in the middle.
- Roll the dough from the bottom up to the top until a log-like shape is formed.
- Fold in the left and right sides one more time. Then using a bench scraper, scoop the dough up and place in into the proofing basket, seam-side facing up.
- Add a couple more folds to add additional strength.
Proofing:
- Cover and rest for 90 minutes at room temperature.
Bake:
- Preheat oven to 500° F with
- Place the dutch oven with the lid on in the oven while it is preheating. Preheat the dutch oven for 30-35 minutes prior to baking.
- Cut a piece of parchment paper and sprinkle semolina flour over it, about one Tbsp.
- Take the sourdough out of the proofing basket and lay seam side down on the parchment paper.
- Using a razor blade, knife, or bread lame, make any design you wish. This will allow steam to escape from the dough as it bakes.
- After preheating is done, take the dutch oven out of the oven and place the dough with the parchment paper in the pot. Cover and lower the oven heat to 485° F. Cook for 18 minutes with the lid on.
- After 18 minutes, uncover the dough and drop the oven temperature to 465° F, and cook for an additional 25 minutes.
- Once the sourdough bread is done baking, remove the bread from oven and allow it to cool on a baking rack.
- Allow sourdough to fully cool prior to cutting.
Notes
- Heat: If you find your dough is not rising properly, it could mean that you need more heat. This is why I recommend heating the filtered water used in the dough and warming the oven for a bit and then turning it off during the rising process.
- Bubbly Sourdough Starter: If your loaves are dense or flat, it could mean that your starter was not strong from the beginning, giving the dough the proper yeast and bacteria needed to rise. Therefore, make sure that you are using fresh and active sourdough starter to make your leaven. I like to feed my starter a minimum of 2 times prior to making a leaven with it.
- Leaven: Placing your leaven on a towel or wooden cutting board, as opposed to the cold countertops, helps keep the leaven warm and rise more efficiently. Sourdough is composed of wild yeast and bacteria and this requires warmth.
