Sourdough for dummies, make bread without complicating it. Use this lazy method for the best bread without the bread dictating your life. It will make baking sourdough easy and painless.
Easy Sourdough Bread
Touching Dough Only for 10-Minutes!
I’m a 4 years late to the sourdough craze. But I finally tried it and I’m hooked.
In my journey to end the need for having to buy sourdough bread at my local grocery store that had SEED OILS. It’s frustrating to think I can’t get away from these pesky seed oils. But after many attempts to try starting my own sourdough starter, I finally gave up and took a class with a person in my area. Getting a hands on experience is a must if you're not naturally talented in the kitchen. I can barely cook much less bake. The class was insightful and took away the fear of making bread.
But I still struggled with finding the time as my with kid’s sports practices and homeschool it was hard to get in a schedule to make it the old school way. So I searched and found Ben Star’s Lazy Sourdough. He had me at lazy. Here’s what I did and can tell you it worked for me. The only issue is that you don’t have as many holes in the crumb but that’s no problem for anyone in our home we just want good homemade bread.
Overview of the process (So easy):
Mix all ingredients at once
Let the dough bulk ferment at “room temperature” (first rise) for 24 hours
Shape, final proof at room temperature, and bake on Day 2
Tip No. 1 - Take a class to learn the basics of sourdough break making.
Having the hands-on experience will help you take away the mystic and fear of making bread. Nothing compares to getting your hands in the dough to know how it’s supposed to feel and look. Taking a class was a game-changer and I’m sure it will be for you.
Tip No 2 - Don’t overcomplicate the process and try the Easy Sourdough Recipe to save your sanity.
I still make bread the old-fashioned way, when I have time to do so. But with three teenager kids I don’t have the time to wait on my sourdough schedule as many times I found my dough getting overpoofed. This easy sourdough recipe is a game-changer and allows me to have fresh bread every week.
Overview of the process:
Mix all ingredients at once
Let the dough bulk ferment at “room temperature” (first rise) for 24 hours
Shape, final proof at room temperature, and bake on Day 2
Ingredients:
Flour: 567g King Arthur Bread Flour
Water: 364g Filtered water (filtered water is best and you never know what chemicals are in your tap water that can affect the fermentation process.
Starter: 113g unfed starter (Pro Tip: make sure that when you feed your starter it was equal parts flour and water.)
Salt: 20g Morton’s kosher salt - DO NOT USE iodized table salt it will be too salty!
Does this process work?
It worked for me each time. I have read people say that it’s too salty, but I think they used regular table salt and not the Morton Kosher Salt. The dough is a bit more dnese but the taste is great. And like Ben Starr’s says, “how can you slather on butter or jam on a hole!?”
Step-by-Step Guide
1. Mix your ingredients:
Mix it together to make sure there are no dry bits, but don’t knead it. Use the dough to clean the side of the bowl. Then cover up and leave out on counter until it doubles.
Disclaimer: The time to double make take as little as 8 hours or up to 24 hours. It all depends the temp of your kitchen and the hydration of your dough. My experience so far has been about 8-10 hours and I live in a high humidity area so it yours most likely will not be the same.
2. Shape:
Once it’s doubled take the dough out of the bowl. On the counter spread a little bit of flour and shape the dough into a boule. Make sure you keep tension on the doing as you shape it but do keep the dough always on the counter as your shopping to keep that tension. Once it’s shaped then place in banetton basket or put in the dutch oven you will be using. I prefer the banetton basket.
3. Rest for 90 Minutes:
Leave the dough on counter with lid on it for 90-minutes.
4. Score the Loaf
You can use a lame to cut the loaf on top so that once it starts baking it has a beautiful shape and not guasimoto.
4. Pre-heat Oven
Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees and bake for 45 minutes (covered).
5. Bake Without Lid
For 15-minutes bake for it to get golden brown crust.
6. Cool
Let the boule cool for at least an hour before you cut into it.
7. Enjoy
8. Store
I like to store my break in a bread bag that keeps the dough nice and fresh.
Tools I Love
There are a lot of tools that you can buy to make sourdough bread but you do not need it all. Here are the most basic tools you need.
Mixing Bowl - any mixing bowl your heat desires but make sure it has depth as your dough will rise in the first fermentation.
Jar for you starter - I use old jars or these from Amazon. They also sell them at Williams and Sonoma.
Dough wisk - I use this one. There are many iterations of this and i’ve seen people get good ones for less money on Temu!
Banneton Basket (not needed if you do the easy sourdough recipe) - I like to shape my dough and put in basket before I put in my dutch over in both the easy and old school sourdough recipe.
Silicon Bread Sling - this makes it easy to take your loaf out of the dutch oven and you don’t have to use endless amounts of parchment paper.
Lame/razor or scissors: I prefer to use a lame to score my bread but any of these will work. The more experience you get the better your boule will be scored and baked. Be patient.
Other Items:
On Amazon they sell great starter kits. There are so many that have I think more than what you need to start out, but here’s my favorite bang your buck to get you started.
