A couple of years ago a friend gave me a great recipe and instructional video from Azelias Kitchen, which I lost! But luckily I had learned the ways before losing it. So I have put together some pictures and the recipe below.

I love bread, but I don’t like normal store bought bread because of the additives, yeast, packaging etc.

To make sourdough bread you need; sourdough starter, salt, water, bread flour. You can slice it and freeze it so you always have a slice of delicious sourdough available.

SOURDOUGH STARTER

To make your sourdough starter you need bread flour and water and a covered jar, like a clip top jar with the rubberband removed, or a jar tightly covered with muslin.  You want the mixture to be able to breathe but you do not want even the tiniest of bug to get in.

Mix about 2 heaped tablespoons of bread flour and water to make a loose paste.  Every 12 hours remove about 80% of the paste, and add 2 heaped tablespoons of breadflour and water, again to make a loose paste. If you are passing by, you can stir it once or twice a day, but this is not too important.  Do this for approximately 5-7 days.  After even day 2, depending on your climate, you will start to notice bubbles forming.  You then have your sourdough starter.

The sourdough gurus will be both shocked and offended, but I do keep my sourdough starter in the fridge, and it sometimes only gets fed once a week, if it is lucky. When I want to make sourdough bread, I usually take it out the fridge a day or two before, and feed it.  To feed your sourdough starter, just do the same as above. The 80% sourdough mix that you remove, you can keep in a separate sealed jar in the fridge to make crackers and waffles.

SOURDOUGH BREAD

You will need a bigger batch of sourdough starter to make your sourdough bread.  If you have not recently fed your sourdough starter and it is in the fridge, remove it a day before and feed it.

To make your starter that you will use for your bread:

You will now have your jar of starter in front of you and a larger jar or jug/tub that you can cover securely and leave on the kitchen counter overnight or for a few hours during the day.

Remove 80% from your starter jar, and place it in your larger jaror jug/tub,  along with about 120gm flour and water to make a loose paste.

Now finish feeding your original starter by adding 1 tablespoon of bread flour and water to make a loose paste. Place back in the fridge if you are not going to make bread again soon.

After a few hours or overnight you should notice large bubbles have formed in your large sourdough starter. This is good.

To make your sourdough:

200gm starter

500gm bread flour (white, brown, wholemeal, rye etc) You can make a mix to suit your taste.  Half white and half brown/wholemeal is a nice easy start.

10g salt (non-iodated)

320g water

Mix all your ingredients together.  It will be quite sticky.

Leave to rest 10-15 min

1st fold (pull up & to the middle approx 4-5 times)

Leave to rest 15 min

2nd fold (pull up & to the middle approx 4-5 times)

Leave to rest 15 min

3rd fold (pull up & to the middle approx 4-5 times)

Leave to rest 15 min

Sometimes the dough needs a 4^th fold if it has not started to puff a little

Tip our dough out onto a floured surface

Pick up the edge & fold to middle a few times.  Turn it over and cup your hands around the base, as if you were tucking it in and under to make a tightish ball. Place in floured lined bowl.

Leave 4 – 12 hours

Preheat to 220deg Celsius.

You can place a dutch oven / flat bottomed poitjie / cast iron pot in to preheat. If you do not have a pot, you can place directly on a floured baking sheet.

Quickly and carefully remove the pot, place the dough into it.  With a sharp knife or blade score a cross or bars across the top. Place lid on and place pot in the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes carefully remove the lid, and bake in the open pot at 200deg for a further 40 – 50 minutes. Try leave the bread to cool before slicing it open.

I did step by step instructions on Instagram (view highlights) a while ago and have included the pics here and on Facebook too. Maybe if I was smarter I would do a video.

 

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SOURDOUGH BAKING TIPS:

• If there is a lot of chlorine in your water, leave it to stand in a wide mouthed jug or bowl to dissipate.
• Use non-iodated quality salt
• Not all bread flours are the same, you will find you get different results from one brand to the next.
• The more white flour you use, the lighter the loaf will be.
• You can add some raisins, seeds and even whole grain if you like.
• You do not have to make it round, you can shape it into a rectangular loaf and bake it on a tray or in a loaf shaped pot.

 

Hope that all makes sense?! If it doesn’t make sense, please tell me first, then click on to Zero Waste Chef – she always makes sense. In fact, you should just follow her page anyway, she has such great ideas and tasty recipes.