The Most Amazing Sourdough Bread Recipe

For the Night Before – You have two choices you can  – A) make this all in one big bowl and separate it tomorrow in half, so you have two loafs, or B) you can separate it all in to two bowls now, and let each loaf rise on individually (this is what I usually do). I will teach it to you in both ways.

*** Remember when ever you are weighing something put the bowl on the weigher empty,  then hit the reset so it is showing zero grams again even with the bowl on. This way you are only weighing the water or flour and not the bowl***

1. Okay make sure you have a bowl that the dough has a lot of room to rise in. (the point of this pic is show how much room there is for the dough to grow over night.  As you can see you want a lot of room to grow)

   

2. You will start with dry stuff only first – Now take your 1000 grams of flour, and your 20 grams of salt and mix together in your big bowl very thoroughly. OR if you are doing two separate bowls then you would do 500 gram of good flour and 10 grams of salt in each bowl.

3. Now add your 800 grams of filtered water, 170 grams of sourdough starter OR if you have your two bowls then add 400 grams of filtered water and 85 grams of starter in each bowl to your dry ingredients. Don’t stir just yet…

   (remember never use all of your starter, so if you don’t have enough starter for the 170 grams, then either use less, or stop, add more to your starter for a couple days, then once it been feed a few days and has grown from you adding to it then you can make the bread.)

4. Add your 1 tsp honey, and your 2 tbls of melted butter OR if you have two bowls add 1/2 tsp of honey and 1 tbls of butter to each bowl.

5. NOW Stir every thing together really well.

   

6. When it looks like a nice shiny ball of dough, wrap it in a smith or walmart grocery bag, or what ever if that freaks you out 🙂

   

7. Leave it on the counter over night and let it grow! It will be pretty big in the morning.

   

Feed Your Starter Replace the exact amount you just pulled out – you can do this in the morning or now.

1. So because you pulled out 170 grams of starter you will now want to re-feed your starter. Add 85 grams of good flour and 85 grams of filtered water. Stir well and put your lid back on, but not tight (see our how to care for your starter here)

NOW for the BAKING part!

1. Pre heat your oven to 490 degrees, yes 490

2. Once your oven is fully heated to 490, first thing is first grab your cast iron or Deep Covered Baker put the lid on it and put it in the oven EMPTY just with the lid on it. 

   

3. Cook it in the oven empty, but with the lid on, for 30 minutes

4. About the last 10 minutes of it cooking pull out your parchment paper. Get enough to line the inside of your cast iron or deep baker and crumple it in to a ball. WHY… Well because I said so, Just Kidding 🙂 , It is the crumpling of the paper that allows the dough to get the cool round but crickly/wavey shape on top. You’ll see. Just trust me, crinkle the paper

   

5. (Step 5 & 6 go hand in hand, but go in order) Now on a clean counter or very large cutting board lightly sprinkle flour around and dump the dough on it.  If you have two separate doughs only dump one dough at a time, meaning you will only cook one at a time so leave the other dough to keep rising until it’s, it’s turn to be cooked.

6. Now use the Dough Scraper to fold the dough on its self over and over and cover it nicely with flour and create that beautiful ball (video demo down below) You can use only half the dough to do this and then the other half you can do it later. I did it all at once cause it was easier to cut and separate in to two balls that way. Then i put the second one back in the big bowl until it was time to cook it.  

   So if you have one large bowl of dough go ahead and dump it all and roll it in the flour like the demo video below.  After its rolled then use your scraper to cut the dough in half.  Put one half back in the bowl for when you’re ready to cook the second loaf.

   

7. Okay When the timer says your EMPTY dish is ready pull out the very hot dish and take the lid off. Now line the cast iron or deep baker with the crinkled paper all the way up the sides. Any paper that sticks out past the sides cute it off.  Otherwise that extra paper that sticks out will get crispy and easily crumble and its a pain.

8. Now dump in your first ball of dough right in the middle, on the crinkled paper. Put the lid back on. 

   

9. Put the Dish with the dough back into the oven Leave it at 490 and cook for 25 minutes

10. When 25 minutes is up take the lid off, (Oh my Heck, doesn’t that look awesome already!) turn the oven down to 450 degrees and cook the uncovered bread for another 10/12 minutes depending on your oven.

11. When done take that AMAZING BREAD OUT! Pull the parchment paper and bread out of the iron or baker, put the lid back on, turn the oven back up to 490 and put the empty dish back in the oven to heat it back up!

    

12. With my Baker I only put it back in about 15 minutes then pull it out and follow the steps with the dough scraper and light flour and repeat the rest after that (so repeat steps 5-11). But with the cast iron you might want to do the recommend 20/30 minutes of reheating the cast iron.

Caring For Your Bread After It’s Baked

1. Okay this is the most important step, take that fresh hot bread and cut right into it! Add some butter and take a big bit!!! Oh my Heck isn’t that the most amazing bread ever!!!

2. After your done eating it store your bread face down to keep the mosture in it.

3. Leave face down for the rest of the day as you eat it. You can leave it uncovered so you can keep the firm perfect crust. If you used that pampered chef baker, your crust is insanely perfect crunchy firm and the inside is insanely perfect soft.. The cast iron does a great job too, just not as amazing as the pampered chef one (just being honest) but I have eaten it both ways and both are awesome!!!

4. After the first day you will want to fit it in to a larg zip lock bag in a cool dry place. For the best bread, eat with in a week. LOL at my house a new loaf doesn’t even make it a day and a half 🙂

5. Enjoy every mouth full!