Sourdough Bread

Test your starter to make sure it passes the float test (if you drop a teaspoon of starter in a glass of water does it float) If it passes, dissolve your sourdough starter in your water. If it doesn't pass, try feeding it again and waiting a few hours.

Stir ingredients together using a spoon or spatula until mostly combined. You may need to get your hands in there and help really mix it together. You don't need a perfectly smooth ball of dough at this point.

When we added our flour and water together and stirred, we developed gluten. During this 60 minutes that gluten is relaxing making our dough easier to handle and the flour is becoming fully hydrated. This is called autolyse if you want to use the technical term

After 1 hour, uncover the bowl and fold the dough over onto itself a few times. The best way to do this is to grab the dough with your hand (it helps to wet your hands before you start), starting at the top of the bowl furthest from you, and pull it over onto itself towards the bottom of the bowl closest to you. Turn the bowl 90 degrees and repeat, doing 8 folds in total.

Your dough should look more like play doh at this point. We are going to "bulk ferment" the dough which means letting it all rise unshaped overnight. This gives the yeast time to get going and add some air to your bread.

Your dough should feel slightly lighter and fluffier than it did previously you might see some air bubbles if it was very happy. While completing these folds, try not to knock all the air out of your bread. You'll want to do 8 more folds total

We're going to be shaping our bread into a round loaf known as a boule. It was difficult for me to film myself doing this, but the youtube video above does an excellent job showing you exactly how it should be done.

Place your shaped loaf on a cookie sheet on a piece of lightly floured parchment or a floured tea towel to rise. If at all possible, use parchment. It makes the next step MUCH simpler. Either way, this will make it easier to move later. Cover it with another tea towel and let it rise in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours or until it has about doubled in size. It was cooler this weekend, so I proofed mine in my oven. I turned the oven on to preheat to 200 for about 3 minutes and then turned it off. I placed my bread dough inside. I covered it with a tea towel after I took this picture.

As you can see, my dough rose more out than up which means I didn't develop much gluten when I was working with my dough (I only did sets of 4 folds, but I've instructed you to do sets of 8 so hopefully that will help. I also think I could have stretched my dough a bit more when I folded). Anyway, this step is TRICKY and I was in my kitchen alone so I had no way to take pictures, but what I ended up doing was flouring a salad plate, flipping the boule onto the plate and then flipping it from the plate into the dutch oven. If you were able to use parchment paper under your boule, just lift it up and put it in the dutch oven parchment and all.

Update: on a second loaf, I just proofed my shaped loaf directly in my dutch oven and it made the process much easier

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees for at least half an hour. We want the oven nice and hot. While it is preheating, you can put your bread dough in the dutch oven near the oven and let it continue to rise.

Being very gentle and using a very sharp knife, slash the top of your loaf. There are many ways to cut it for decorative purposes, but a single line down the middle will do. This allows the bread to have a place to expand while baking. Cover the pot with the lid.

Reduce the temperature of your oven to 450 degrees and immediately put your dutch oven or pot into the oven. This high temperature should create steam that will help your bread rise. This is known as oven spring.

I know it will be hard, but let your bread cool completely before slicing. Here's why: While it's warm, it's still baking. The proteins are still setting. So if you cut into it now it will be more gummy than if you wait. It will also release a lot of steam that would otherwise stay in your bread and cause it to dry out and stale faster.