My poor sourdough starter has been through a lot with me for an owner. I had it sitting in a hot car for two days when we moved from Orange County to the Central Coast. I neglect it so very badly on a regular basis. I use it when I need to, feed it, and shove it to the back of my fridge where it sometimes sits for months without any attention. And still, it keeps on ticking. Yeast is amazing like that.
I made this little starter several years ago utilizing a few different websites including King Arthur Flour's. If you are a science person or a baking person or just love sourdough, I highly recommend making your own starter. It is soooooooooooo cool!!! Click here for a bunch of sourdough recipes from my Pinterest board to inspire you.
I've used my starter to make a variety of different sourdough bread recipes. My favorite recipe from Baking by James Peterson is pretty straight forward, akin to how most bakeries make their bread, and produces a lovely, fluffy, sour loaf. Unfortunately, it requires more time and effort than I would like to put into bread making at this point in my life.
The recipe I most often use is a "no knead" recipe that my neighbor passed along. There are a few different ways to do things. This is what I do.
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| Cinnamon raisin on the left, regular sourdough on the right. |
I mix up my dough the night before I want to bake it, cover it with plastic wrap and a clean cloth, and leave it fermenting all night long.
Without kneading it, I transfer the dough to a buttered bread pan, cover with oiled plastic wrap, and leave to rise 2 to 4 hours or until it doubles in size.
The loaves then get baked with a little water bath below them to get an even rise and a nice crust.
I make other bread recipes on occasion too, but usually default to sourdough because I love sour and it's supposed to be good for your gut. Go gut health!!
No Knead Sourdough Bread
INGREDIENTS
3 1/4 cups all purpose unbleached flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup very warm water
DIRECTIONS
1. In a large bowl, thoroughly mix ingredients until dough comes together.
2. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and lay a clean kitchen towel on top of that.
3. Let rise all night at room temperature (10 to 14 hours).
4. Butter a bread pan and scrape dough into pan.
5. Spray plastic wrap with a little oil spray and cover loaf.
6. Let rise 2 to 4 hours at room temperature or until doubled in size.
7. Preheat oven to 450 degrees and warm a large sheet pan on the bottom rack.
8. When oven is ready, pour 4 to 6 cups really hot water into sheet pan very carefully.
9. Place loaf on rack directly above water bath and bake about 50 minutes.
10. Immediately remove bread from pan onto a cooling rack to cool.
11. I keep my bread in a large ziplock bag in the fridge to keep it fresh for about a week.
12. I like to warm and soften up slices of bread in my toaster for sandwiches - 30 seconds or so should do the trick.
* For cinnamon raisin sourdough, mix in 2 tsp cinnamon and 3/4 cup raisins to the initial dough. Please note that your loaf will not rise as much as a regular sourdough loaf because of these add-ins.
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