Classic Sourdough Loaf (and Extra Sourdough Tips and Tricks!)

This is my tried and tested sourdough loaf, learned both from a family friend and a number of different online chefs and resources! Follow the recipe and you'll end up with a beautiful and tasty sourdough with a golden crust, feel free to ask any questions in the comments, and share photos if you make it!

Necessary Supplies:

Sourdough Starter (or about 7g dried yeast)

Bread Flour

Water

Salt

Large Bowl

Dutch Oven/Thick Walled Cooking Pot

Sharp Knife

Ice Cube

Cling Film/Tea Towel

Optional:

Sunflower Seeds

Poppy Seeds

Proving Basket

Baking Sheet

Dough Scraper

If you have instant yeast skip this step.

If you're making this with sourdough starter, you'll need to wake up your starter. I do this by mixing my starter with bread flour and water, in a 1:1:1 ratio. For this loaf, I needed 200g starter total, so I mixed 80g starter with 80g bread flour and then 80g water. Leave it in a warm space overnight and the following day it will be nice and bubbly and ready to use.

If you don't have enough starter, just do a 1:1:1 ratio with whatever you have, leave it overnight, and then repeat the process the following day.

(tip: If you don't want to make bread regularly, just dehydrate your started by spreading it thinly on baking paper and waiting for it to dry. Then, whenever you need any, just re-hydrate it with equal weight of water! Last three photos are of me rehydrating my starter)

When your starter is ready, put 1 part starter (200g), to 2 parts water (400g), to 3 parts flour (600g), in a bowl and mix it all together (pic 1) Leave it for half an hour to rest and it will become more smooth. Then dissolve some salt (2g per 100g flour, so 12g for this recipe) in a splash of boiling water and add it to the dough.

Start to mix it all together by lifting from underneath the dough and pushing it back in on itself, as shown in the photos above.

Once the salty water is fully mixed in, scoop it out onto a kitchen surface and begin to knead it. At this point, if you want to, you can add something into the dough like poppy seeds or sundried tomatoes etc, I added poppy seeds to mine, as you can see if you knead it for long enough they'll all spread out eventually! Knead for 10-12 minutes or so or until you can ball the dough up and it keeps its shape. Then put it in an oiled bowl and put cling film over the top, and leave to prove for 3-4 hours in a warm spot.

Once it has proved for four hours, turn it out onto a the table/work surface and dust the top with flour. Then flip it and roll it from bottom to top and shape it into a rough ball shape. Leave it under a loose bit of cling film for half an hour.

After you've waited half an hour, the sourdough will have flatted into a kind of pancake-y shape. Roll it up like a swiss roll and tuck each end under. You're trying to build some tension over the surface of the bread here. The first video is the technique I use to build tension, by dragging my hands underneath the loaf so I'm kind of stretching the top of the dough out.

Next, flour your bread basket (or put a tea-towel in a bowl, and sprinkle flour on top of that instead). This will make it easier to get the bread out tomorrow (sourdough needs a long time to rise!) / or later in the day if you started early.

Then when you've built some nice tension on the surface, put the dough top-down (messy side up) in the basket/bowl. If you want to cover it with seeds (this also helps release it from the basket when you take it out later) then run some water over your hand and gently spread it over the surface of the dough. Then lower the dough into a bowl of seeds, the seeds will stick to the dough, then put it seed-side-down in the basked. You can see this technique in the second video.

Cover the loaf with a tea-towel and put it in the fridge for a minimum of four hours.

When you get it out the following morning, it should respond to a poke by springing back (first video).

Pre-heat the dutch oven in the oven at max heat for 20 mins, make sure you use heat-proof gloves for this bit!

Turn the bread out of the basket just before you take the dutch oven out, it makes it a bit easier if you put it on baking paper but it's not essential. Have a sharp knife/blade and an ice cube ready!

When the dutch oven is hot, take it out and take the lid off, gently place the bread in, and score it across the top with a few shallow cuts (photo 2). This allows the bread to rise properly. Then (this is an original tip!) put an ice cube between the baking sheet and the dutch oven wall. This will sizzle and melt quickly so get the lid back on (safely) asap! As it melts the ice cube lets off steam which stops the crust from hardening too quickly and allows the bread to rise properly.

Put it all back in the over and turn the temperature back down to 220°C. After 25 minutes, use an oven glove to take off the lid and the bread will have risen but not browned (photo 3), leave the lid off and put it back in the over for another 25-30 minutes until it's golden brown. Finally, leave it to cool on a wire rack before enjoying (if you can wait that long!) You know it has risen properly when it sounds hollow if you tap it (video 2). Enjoy!

Sourdough starter can also be fried like pancake batter! It has a wonderful chewy-savoury-tangy flavour. My favourite way to cook it is to fry it in oil, then mix up some chilli oil, garlic puree, and ginger puree, and put that on top of the exposed side before flipping and frying. Might sound weird, but it's amazing (and a lot quicker), give it a try!