If, like so many others, you are thinking of venturing into sourdough bread making, you have come to the right place. Let me show you how to get started, how to keep going, and how to begin enjoying home made, crusty, healthy sourdough bread with my Simple Sourdough for Beginners recipe.
“I’m going to tell you a hard truth now: it’s not the recipe – it’s you”
Once you pull your first good loaf from the oven, you will never be able to go back to those crazy “before” days. You will remember, when you were still scared of your starter, and kept wiping the hair out of your face with your sticky dough covered fingers and then the dough would get stuck in your hair and hair would get stuck on your fingers and then the dough would get stuck to the board and the tears and the goading from your friends and … haha good times hey?? Lets get you started with a super easy sourdough for beginners recipe.
Before you start
The biggest mistake new bread makers make is to try to bake with a starter that is not ready. You can almost tell what a loaf will be like by the activity going on in the jar, before you ever mix your dough. Your starter is your holy grail, and literally dictates your success or failure. Don’t try to bake with a weak starter, it will crush your soul. Just don’t do it.
Find what works for your starter. When you do, your sourdough journey will become so much more pleasant. More than once, I have actually forgotten that I am making sourdough, and accidentally leave my dough out in the bowl. I get up in the morning and find the dough – unfolded, unshaped. After I panic and berate myself thoroughly, I give it a quick shape and bake anyway – because why not – and sometimes I get a great loaf!
I know its tempting to focus on shaping, or kneading, or folding. But you need to focus on your starter. Keep it happy and healthy, and it will reward you so much.
Find a recipe you like
I am going to tell you a hard truth now: it’s not the recipe – it’s you.
I know the drill – you tried a recipe, it didn’t work, you go looking for another one. Don’t. Find a basic sourdough for beginners recipe (like this one!), and keep trying until it works. If the recipe isn’t working, it is almost definitely something that you are doing that is causing your bread to not work.
If your starter is growing and looks like it should, then it will be in your process (I think its your starter though but whatever). Go through the list of things that matter and make adjustments where you can.
What really matters with sourdough:
- Your starter
- Your ambient temperature
What people think matters way more than it actually does:
- Type of flour
- Fancy recipe
- Kneading/folding
Seriously. If you have a good starter, and you follow the recipe fairly well, you will get bread eventually. The eventually part comes from learning what the dough should look like, when.
This is where your ambient temperature comes in to it. I can leave my dough out of the fridge all night in Winter and get great bread. If I was to do that in Summer I would definitely get over proofed goop! Small adjustments in temperature and time make a huge difference. This might sound confusing, and make you think that a recipe could never work – and you would be correct. Even a simple sourdough for beginners recipe is not going to work every time for everybody following it, as we all live in different climates, and in varying seasons. My house is not the same temperature every day of the year, and neither is yours (I’m assuming).
You need to keep making bread, so that you can get to know your dough in its different stages. Learn what it should look like, feel like, smell like. This is the only way to success.
OK lets get startered
See what I did there? I know, Im hilarious.
You really do need to get your starter startered though. Don’t skip that. You want it strong, nice and bubbly. You want it to take the skin off the inside of your nostrils when you sniff it. Oh sorry – is that just me?
When, and ONLY WHEN, you have your starter trying to break out of its jar home, you should proceed.
Sourdough for Beginners recipe:
I like to remember the KISS principle here. Keep it simple, stupid. Use a simple, basic, sourdough for beginners recipe. That way, if it doesn’t work, you know it is just your process that needs adjusting. Don’t skip out on the salt either – it is absolutely essential. Actually don’t change anything – just be cool ok?
You don’t need to do anything fancy here. You can get fancier later on if you feel like you want to complicate this, but for now, KISS! In this order, add to your bowl:
- 100g active, bubbly starter
- 450g flour
- 315g water
- 8g salt
Mix it all together. Don’t worry too much about this, it will be a little rough. Just stir and chop and try to get as much of the mix incorporated as possible. You are not aiming for gorgeous, silky dough here.
Let sit for 30 mins with the lid on. This will let the flour absorb the water and take away some of the roughness of the initial mix.
Folding:
- Over the next few hours, you will need to fold the dough a few times. Do your first one about 30 mins after the initial mix. The aim with this first fold is to try to incorporate the lumpy or rough bits, and get the dough ball a bit smoother than it was when you first mixed it. Don’t worry about stretching just yet, just squidge it all together and then do lots of small folds to make a nice smooth ball out of it.
- Try to do a fold every 1.5 – 2 hours. It is best not to stretch too much. You just want to gently pull and fold, not tear the dough into pieces. As you become more experienced, you can push your stretches a little more. For now, just concentrate on getting some nice smooth folds, without tearing the dough.
Shaping your sourdough:
Once you have done 3 or 4 folds, and your dough is feeling like it is starting to hold some shape, you can turn it out onto a board. I like to do 2 shapings. You will find a bench scraper extremely helpful here!
The first shaping is just to divide the dough (if you are doing that), and shape into a rough ball.
The second shaping is to very gently create some tension on the skin of the ball, and shape into it’s final baking shape. I usually like to bake batards, as we mostly eat our bread as toast or sandwiches.
Once you have completed your second shaping, pop it gently into a teatowel lined bowl or banneton, fold side down. If it is cool in your house you can leave out overnight, but the safest bet is to put into the fridge overnight, or until you want to bake it. It will be fine in there for a day at least, I have even gone 2 days.
Baking your sourdough:
Getting ready to score your sourdough:
You need to start with a very hot oven. I just go straight to MAX on mine. If you have a dutch oven, you can pop that in there to heat up too. Dutch ovens are great for keeping the moisture in the dough while it bakes, but if you don’t have one, I recommend a cake pan in the bottom of your oven, and a pizza tray or similar to bake the loaf. Put both of these in when you turn the oven.
Remove the dough from the fridge and turn out onto a slider of some sort if you are baking on a pizza tray, or onto a piece of baking paper if you are using a dutch oven. Let it sit until your oven comes up to temperature.
Into the oven:
Once your oven is super hot, you need to score the dough. You want the sharpest blade you can find – I used to use the blade out of a disposable razor (new of course!). Just do a single cut from one side to the other, around half an inch deep (unless of course you want to try something fancy!)
Then quickly and carefully, either slide your dough onto your pizza tray or into your dutch oven (put the lid on).
If you are using the pizza tray, carefully pour one cup of water into the cake tin you placed onto the floor of the oven. This creates a lot of steam, so don’t go sticking your face near the oven when you open the door later!
Bake like this for 20 mins.
Setting the mood for literally the rest of the week probably:
You can then open the oven (don’t forget about the steam!) and remove the lid from your dutch oven if you are using one. The loaf you see after this first 20 mins is the loaf you are getting. Hopefully, it is respectable.
You now want to turn your oven down to around 200 degrees and bake for another 20 mins. This will finish baking the loaf and develop the crust. If you want a softer crust you can turn the temperature down a little more.
Now the hardest part – take the loaf from the oven and allow to cool completely to room temperature. If you cut into a hot, or even warm loaf, it causes the loaf to become gummy. I admit fully that I have made the decision at times to not care about this – sometimes I want warm bread. But just know that the crumb will become gummy and the loaf will go stale much faster.
Ok, now put some butter and honey on there and post a pretentious photo to Instagram! Don’t forget to pin and share this Simple Sourdough for Beginners recipe.
Simple Sourdough for Beginners
Yield: 1 White Loaf
If, like so many others, you are thinking of venturing into sourdough bread making, you have come to the right place. Let me show you how to get started, how to keep going, and how to begin enjoying home made, crusty, healthy sourdough bread with my Simple Sourdough for Beginners recipe.
Ingredients
- 100g Excited starter
- 50g Whole grain flour
- 400g White/bread flour
- 315g Room temperature water
- 8g Salt
Instructions
EXAMPLETIMING GUIDE
Day 1
8am:Feed up your starter at 8am, sit at roomtemperature
2pm:Mix your Dough, 30 minute rest
2:30pm– 6:30pm:3 folds, with at least 1 hr rest between
7:30pm:Preshape, 1 hour rest
8:30pm:Final shape, into basket, refrigerate
Day 2
Preferably morning–Bake
METHOD
Making your dough
Mix starter,water,flour and salt together into aroughdough. Mix for a minute or so to make sure everything is combined. Let this mixture rest and soak for 30 minutes.
First Fold
Work around the dough pinching a piece with flattened fingers and thumb, stretching it out and folding it back over the dough making a ball. Around 12 folds should be enough. Flip over so smooth side is up, cover with a clean cloth and leave to rest at room temperature.
Second& ThirdFolds
6 stretches and folds as above should be enough.
Pre-shape
Dust your surface with a small amount of flour. Turn out your dough, upside down onto the surface.Do one envelope fold (See note 1), thenshape the dough into a ball quite tight without tearing it (See note 2). Rest for 1 hour, covered with a cloth.
Final Shape
In the final shaping the aim is to create a tight structure without degassing the dough too much. So be delicate with the folds but still creating tension. Dust your work surface with a little flour, slide your dough scraper underneath and turn the dough upside down onto a lightly dusted surface. Using the same method as the pre-shape, shape into either abatardor boule (a boule will be easier, as you will already have it from the shaping!). When you are done, dust it well with semolina or a rice flour, and dust a banneton with rice flour too. If you don’t have a banneton, line a colander or bowl with a cloth and dust it well. Place the dough in the basket upside down (seam side up, floured side down).
Final Rest
Cover your banneton with ateatoweland place into the fridge to proveslowly overnight.
BAKING YOUR LOAF
When you are ready to bake, remove your loaf from the fridge and let it rest in the banneton while the oven preheats. While it should show clear signs of inflation, don’t expect huge growth but certainly it should have plumped up since you put it in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 250°C with a baking stone or pizza tray on the middle shelf and a deep tray on the bottom.
Turn out the loaf out onto a floured peel,score an artistic, intricate pattern that has deep personal meaning (see note 3)into the top with a razor blade.
Slide your loaf onto the hot baking stone/pizza tray. Pour 1 cup of water into the tray to create steam and shut the door.
Bake for 20 minutes, then turn down the heat to 200°Cand bake for a further 20 minutes.
Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.
Notes
1Envelope fold: Exactly as it sounds. Just make a rough square shape from the dough (gently!). Fold the top down, bottom up, each side over. Try to stretch each fold to about 2/3rds across, but don’t pull too hard and tear the dough.
2Turn your dough over. You will have a little rectangle shaped ball. You want to gently tuck the corners in one by one until you have a ball. This will take a few goes around,itsnot just tucking the four corners andyouredone. You need to keep going around the ball, tucking and turning until you have a smooth round ball with all the tucked bits underneath. Again, try not to tear any part of the dough. If it is sticky, use alittleflour on your hands.
3OK I guess you can just do a single line from one side to the other, around half an inch deep. Use a super sharp knife if you don’t have a razor blade. The sharper the better.
Check out my favourite scoring pattern too. It’s actually much easier than it looks!
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