I’m not a baker. I don’t cook with precision. I can’t follow a recipe without cutting a corner or adding some ingredients. You can see this in the fresh pasta tutorial and meatball recipe I posted. I am a biologist not a chemist. Cakes and pastries are chemistry. Sourdough bread is biology. Emergent properties develop from the vitality and metabolism of, and competition among, living yeasts and bacteria rather than from precise measurements and ingredients. I started exploring sourdough a few years ago. We were living in Eugene, Oregon where sourdough starters are considered companion animals. I took a class at the community center and made a couple dense loaves. I also took classes on cheese making, pasta making, and urban homesteading. It’s just what you do in Eugene and it suited me fine.
During the pandemic and the great yeast shortage of 2020 I reëngaged with the wild yeast all around us. After many false starts, I finally have a robust starter and perfect, for me, recipe. I say perfect for me because this starter and recipe, like all biological processes, depends on environmental conditions. I derived the rising times in my house, which is probably colder than yours (in the winter). I grew up in a house where the thermostat was always set on ‘emergency’. The furnace clicked on at some point below 52 degrees which was the lowest non-emergency setting. I also only use King Arthur flour. It has higher protein content than the cheap grocery store brand and just works better. You can get it at Costco in 12 pound bags for $7.99. I use tap water and mine may be different than yours. The point is don’t be afraid to tinker with the recipe and times based on your observations and conditions.
Before beginning, your starter should be active, meaning it has been fed several hours ago and is bubbly. If your starter has been in the fridge or not fed recently it may take a day or two to get going. Take it out, feed it, and repeat each day until it is active and bubbly again. We’ll proceed assuming your starter is thriving.
Get a scale. Measure 500g of all-purpose flour into a bowl. Mix in 11g of kosher salt. Add 120g of starter and 300g of water. Stir until everything comes together in a ball. It may be a bit dry but eventually all the flour should incorporate. Just keep mixing with a sturdy spoon or your hand. You can add a couple more grams of water. It depends, in part, on how loose (watery) your starter is. The dough will soften and moisten as it rises. It will be too wet to shape in the next step if it is not pretty firm to start with.
Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for about 12 hours. The goal is for the dough to double which depends on the temperature. Dough rises because yeast and bacteria from the starter consume sugars created when enzymes break down starch in the flour and produce carbon dioxide. (more science here) Thus, if the first rise is too long the organisms will run out of food and the dough will not rise after shaping or during baking. Scrape the dough gently from the bowl onto a floured surface. Knead gently a few times then tuck and turn the dough to form a dome with a smooth upper surface. Place it on a piece of parchment in a skillet or cake pan. Cover it with an inverted bowl to rise for two hours.
After 1.5 hours put a 10 inch cast iron skillet in your oven and preheat to 500 degrees. When the dough has doubled and the oven is 500 degrees pull the cast iron pan from the oven. Open and close the door quickly. The temperature will drop 30-40 degrees in just a few seconds. Lift your dough by the edges of the parchment and place the paper and dough in the cast iron skillet. Spritz the dough with water. This prevents the top from drying too fast and forming a skin that restricts rising. Use a lame or razor to slice the top of the dough which also allows it to expand and look pretty. Then put the 500 degree pan with the dough back into the oven.
Cook for 12 minutes at 500 then turn the oven down to 450 and cook for another 23 minutes. Don’t open the oven (if you’re looking you’re not cooking) but turn on the oven light to monitor the browning. The crust should get pretty dark. If you can’t see, it’s time to clean your oven.
Pull your pan with the bread from the oven. Lift the bread on the parchment and slide the bread from the parchment onto a cooling rack. I use the metal grate from a 1980’s Coleman camp stove. Let the loaf cool for an hour or so (it is still cooking inside) then eat it with the best coldest butter you can find. Once it is completely cool, which will take 3-4 hours, you can slice the bread and store it in a freezer bag in the freezer. Toast it straight from the freezer and it will taste fresh. Once cool you can also keep the loaf in a zip-top bag for a couple days. Again, toasting always makes it taste fresher.
That’s the deal. I mix the dough around 9pm so the second rise (12 hours later) is from 9-11am the next day. This works if I am working at home. Otherwise I need to tweak it or bake on weekends. You can back-calculate to find a bread schedule that fits your life schedule. I found many recipes online that need constant, even hourly, stretching and folding which is untenable unless you live in your mom’s basement and only have to worry about pausing The Simpsons to manhandle your dough. This recipe doesn’t need babysitting and makes very delicious bread. The tighter crumb is actually better for sandwiches and paninis. You mix it, it rises. Shape it and 2 hours later, it rises. Bake it, it rises. Enjoy the bread and enjoy your extra time.
Recipe: Active time ~15 minutes; Total time ~14.5 hours.
500g all-purpose flour
11g salt
120g starter
300g water
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl.
Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for about 12 hours.
Scrape the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently a couple times.
Shape the dough into a round loaf and place it on parchment paper.
Preheat the oven and a 10 inch cast iron pan to 500 degrees.
Remove the pan. Place the dough with the parchment into the pan. Spritz the dough with water and slash with a razor and put it back in the oven.
Cook at 500 for 12 minutes then reduce the oven to 450 and cook for 23 minutes more.
Remove the bread and place it on a cooling rack.
Eat.
Stretching once or twice during the first rise will produce bread with larger holes and more open crumb. This is appealing and more authentic. To stretch the dough, uncover the bowl several hours into the first rise and use wet hands to grab the far edge of the dough. Lift the edge letting the dough stretch by its own weight. Fold it back into the bowl and turn the bowl 90 degrees. Repeat. Recover the bowl. You can do this once or even two or three times during the first rise to create an open crumb.
