Sourdough Bread

I’ve always liked baking my own bread. It reminds me of my grandmother and her delicious bread, baked in a real wood-fired oven. Too bad I never discussed baking bread with her - and now it’s too late.

What I don’t like about most self-baked bread is the yeasty taste: on the day you bake it, it tastes good, but the next day it’s just dull and yeasty. I’ve tried all kinds of ways to avoid that - using a poolish or a quick starter, baking “no-knead bread” - the latter tasted excellent but somehow I never really learned to manage the thing quite properly; it was a horrible mess, with flour and dough everywhere.

When a friend of mine told me she’s got her own sourdough starter and that she could not only bring some to me but also teach me how to take care of it and bake with it, I was more than thrilled! This happened almost a year ago, and I’ve been baking ever since. Sourdough bread is better than anything you can find in even the best bakeries, plus you get to eat it still warm! And obviously, the ingredients cost next to nothing. You can make endless variations, like my favourite sweet bread: Lemon Bread (a post will definitely follow), or sweet Italian panettone-like bread (yes, I will post about it as well). Plus you can give some of the sourdough to your friends and have a lot of fun baking together and sharing ideas and experiences.

This is my basic sourdough bread recipe, just as I learned it from my friend. It’s called 1-2-3, because you need 1 part of starter, 2 parts of water, and 3 parts of flour, plus 2% salt of the flour weight. My regular bread takes 150g starter, 300g water, 450g flour (mixture of rye, spelt, and wheat is my favourite), and 9g salt.

First, you mix water and flour in a big bowl and let it stand for 20-30 minutes. Then you add the starter and salt, and then knead for about 10 minutes or until the dough feels like bubble-gum. You cover the bowl with a damp baking towel, let ferment for 6 to 12 hours, after which you just toss the dough into a cast iron pot or any round ovenproof pot with a lid, close the lid, put the pot in a cold oven, set the temperature to 225 degrees - and wait. This is the hardest part! I suggest you wait 40 minutes, then take the lid out and bake some 20 minutes more. Oh wait, now comes the even harder part - you’ll still have to wait at least one hour before you can cut the bread and eat it. But it will be worth it...

Did I tell you already that I’m somewhat impatient? Sometimes I just don’t seem to have time to let the dough ferment that long, like today. That’s when I add a bit of dry yeast in the dough (with the salt and starter), but just really a tiny little bit, like ⅓ tsp. That will make the dough rise quicker but won’t affect the taste. A nice trick for the hasty baker!