Easy Sourdough Bread Recipe (With Fed or Discard Starter)
Use this super simple sourdough bread recipe for weekly sourdough bread baking. It's simple and delicious! You can do a few stretch and folds, knead it, or simple make this as a no-knead bread. Any of those techniques will work, so do whatever you have time for today.
Ingredients
- 3 Cups Organic White Flour
- 1 tsp. Sea Salt
- 1 1/2 Cups Water
- 1/2 Cups Sourdough Starter If using discard, use 3/4 cups.
- 2 Tbsp. Honey
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix 3 cups of flour and 1 tsp. of sea salt.
- In a liquid measurer, mix 1 1/2 cups water, 1/2 active starter (or 3/4 cups of sourdough discard), and 2 Tbsp. honey.
- Add the liquid mix to the dry mix and mix together until combined. You're done mixing when the dough clears the sides of the bowl. If you want to knead the dough, do it now for ten minutes by hand or eight minutes in a mixer.
- Cover the bowl and leave it to ferment for six hours in an area with an ambient temperature of 65°F - 75°F (18°C - 24°C). If you're going to do stretch and folds, follow the instructions in the body of the article.
- Remove it from the bowl and shape according to the shape of your bread pan. Your dough is ready to shape when it will return a gentle finger pressure (though not entirely), has doubled or nearly doubled in size, and may have small blisters or bubbles forming underneath the skin of the dough.
- If you're using a bread pan, oil the pan and oil a piece of parchment paper cut to fit the pan. Place the dough inside the pan. Cover the dough with an inverted and oiled bread pan to retain moisture. You will bake the bread with this inverted pan over the top, FYI.
- After the dough has doubled in size (usually after an hour or two), remove the inverted pan and use scissors to cut 3-6 slashes on the top of the loaf. Return the pan inverted over the bread pan, and place in a COLD oven.
- Bake the bread for 35 minutes at 425°F/218°C. Reduce the temperature to 400°F/204°C and bake for another 20-25 minutes until the internal temperature reaches 205°F/96°C. If you don't have a thermometer, tap the top of the loaf - it should sound hollow when finished.
- Remove the bread from the pan and parchment paper and allow to cool on cooling rack entirely before cutting. This can take 12-24 hours.
Notes
I like to use organic white flour when I need to use white flour because only organic flour (in the U.S. at any rate) is unbleached and unenriched.
I add a little honey to this recipe for classic sandwich bread flavor. You can omit it, if you'd like. You can also use an alternative sugar like coconut, raw, or turbinado.
I like to use my hands when mixing, so that I can feel the texture. The dough will stop sticking to the side of the bowl and will look a big shaggy.
Sourdough recipes will culture and rise evenly at an ambient temperature of 65°F - 75°F (18°C - 24°C). If it's warmer, the bread will ferment and raise quicker; if it's colder, the process will be slower.
I no longer knead my sourdough bread, although I used to do so. A kneaded sourdough will result in a nicely dense crumb (the inside of the loaf), but it's not necessary if you don't want to or have time to do that.
Stretching and folding the dough will create a more artisan type texture with lots of holes in the crumb.
You can also leave this dough un-kneaded entirely and only interact with it when you shape it into a loaf for its final rise.
For which method do you have time today and which one produces the results you like? Experiment and find out!
If you don't have time to bake your loaf today, get it to the shaping stage, place it in the pan, cover it, and put it in the fridge. You can bake it up to a week later, though I recommend baking it within the next 36 hours.
You can omit the parchment paper, if you don't have any. The parchment paper, once oiled can be reused several times. It makes it easier to remove the loaf from the pan.
If your bread is browning too quickly, remove the inverted pan and loosely cover your loaf with foil for the last few minutes. The pan helps the water escape the baking bread in a measured way, which creates the traditional artisan sourdough crust.
However, it can sometimes trap heat and over-brown your loaf at the end of the bake time. This can especially happen in a smaller oven like a toaster oven.
If you cut into the loaf while it's still warm, you risk condensing/pressing down the loaf and possibly turning the crumb a bit gummy. If you need to cut it, do so carefully.
Or rip it apart and eat it in chunks with tonight's dinner!
Store for 7-10 days in a container with a sealed lid. You can refrigerate for 2 weeks or more. You may also freeze these loaves for several months before the flavor begins to suffer.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!