The World’s Simplest Sourdough Bread Recipe!

Hi Bold Bakers, recently I made my first ever sourdough starter, actually that's not technically true. I've made it before but this is the first time I've kept it alive. It's really easy and I did a recipe video of how you can do it too. So here's the thing, I made this a few weeks ago and now it's ready to use. So we're going to take this and make the world's easiest loaf of sourdough bread. Simple technique, bare bones, I guarantee every single one of you out there can make it. And joining us again this week behind the camera is my husband Kevin. Yep, I'm right here again and Georgie is definitely asleep. So for accuracy for sourdough I like to use a digital weighing scale but I do have the cup measurements on my website so whatever you like. So the first thing we're going to weigh out is our sourdough starter. Now come here to me Kevin, I want you to see how good this guy is looking. This is Bready Vedder, we call them Bready Vedder because we love pearl jam in this house. And just check out how bubbly and alive this is. So we're going to scoop this into our nice big bowl. So once we've used our starter, remember you're going to have to feed them again and all that information is on my website. So next thing we're going to add in is the water. Now you want blood temperature water. Now how you can tell that is if you put your finger in there and you can't really feel the water around your finger, it's the same temperature as your blood. Yeast loves this kind of warm water to help it grow. Now what I like to add to my bread is a little bit of olive oil. And then all you want to do is just mix these ingredients together. So now let's talk about our flour. I'm using bread flour for this sourdough. So here's the thing, that little bit of extra gluten compared to all purpose flour gives you a better texture, better crumb, makes it chewier. Definitely use bread flour for this. Now I know I'm going to get a lot of questions, but can I use all purpose flour? Technically, yes, you can use all purpose flour. You might need a little bit less liquid. You can do it, but honestly, for best results, go with bread flour and then a nice bit of salt. Salt is really important for the flavor of your bread. And that's it. The simple ingredients that you need to make a loaf of bread. And as you can see, there's no dairy in here, so it's vegan. So that's great. So I'm going to remove the scales. So now the mixing of the dough. This is the simplest part. This is a no knead dough, so you don't need a kitchen mixer to make it, which is awesome. Here's what I like to do. I'm going to remove my rings because I'm going to mix it using my hands. You can use a wooden spoon or a spatula, but the reason I use my hand is because I can tell exactly what's going on in the dough. If it needs more water or anything like that, it always varies because your flour is different from my flour, things like that. So if you go in with your hands, you can just tell what's going on and you can make your adjustments early before you've mixed it too much. So my dough is all coming together. I have a nice clean bowl and I've got a ball of dough. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to put this over to the side. I'm going to bring in a little bit of olive oil, just a drizzle, and then just coat your bowl with olive oil and then pop back in your dough. The reason that we do this is that we're going to proof our dough in this bowl and you want to make it easy on the dough to actually rise. You don't want to stress out the dough. So putting a little bit of oil there will just help it glide up the bowl when it's proofing. OK, gorgeous. You can tell early on, especially when you get your hands in there, if it's a good dough and it's going to turn out well. And I can tell that this one is. So right now I'm going to cover this nice and tight with cling wrap just to keep the air off your dough. And then I'm going to lay over a towel. So now here's what you want to do. This is no knead dough, remember? So you're going to have to ferment it. So we're going to have to let our dough rest for around 12 to 18 hours. And over this time period, the gluten will get stronger. All those bubbles will form, flavor will develop, and then we'll be ready to shape and cook off our bread. So now, because this takes a long time, I prepared one yesterday so it would be ready in time for this. Gemma, question for you. What is sourdough? So that's a good question. Sourdough is bread that is leavened with natural wild yeast that's in the atmosphere. And that's what your starter is. It is wild yeast that you fermented over time. It's just a mixture of flour and water. You feed it and it creates this yeast. So for your bread, there's no need for commercial yeast. You've actually made your own. So it's really fantastic. It adds better flavor, texture. Sourdough is kind of the more superior bread. It's just really when you make a loaf of this, there's something just really rewarding about it. So this has been fermenting for probably over 18 hours, roughly. If you don't use this after at least 24 hours, pop it into the fridge and then you can use it for up to three days. But definitely put it into the fridge after 24 hours. So now I want you to see this. This is the beauty of sourdough bread. Look at this. Do you see that, Kevin? See all those lovely bubbles, all the gases. I can smell it, too. See that? This is what time yields us, these lovely big pockets of air in our bread. And this is why we want to use bread flour because bread flour holds those much better because it's stronger. So here's a question I get a lot about bread dough. Maybe if somebody left it for 24 hours and it starts to get a smell, they say to me, can I still use my dough? It smells kind of bad. But the thing is, that's not a bad smell. That's a good smell. That smell is booze. It is fermentation. It is flavor. That's exactly what your bread dough should smell like. So you can still use it. There is nothing wrong with this and it's going to taste great. So now our dough is ready to be turned out of the bowl. You see that? Do you see those gluten strands? This is beautiful. So often when you turn a bread dough out of the bowl, I always say knock out the air. But for this, we're not going to. Well, we are kind of going to. We're going to do it differently, though. I'm just going to fold the dough over on itself. The reason I do this is to strengthen the dough. You'll see this method a lot in sourdough making people talking about folding your dough. And it's just to make it that little bit stronger. So now all I want to do is form it into a ball and you can do that by kind of pushing it onto your table and scooping it into a loaf. Now, the majority of time when we make bread, I say on a floured surface. But when it comes to shaping bread, I actually don't put flour on my surface because it's so much easier to shape it without flour because it kind of gives it that traction. So this is the shape I want. Now let's talk proofing. So you can get one of those fancy proofing baskets online if you want, but they're around 50 bucks. Here I have a nice little bread basket that I got in the dollar store. You can also use any kind of a bowl. And what I'm going to do is line this with a napkin, a nice clean napkin. I'm generously going to flour this up the sides and on the bottom. Be generous here with your flour because it not only stops the dough from sticking, but it also gives your bread a lovely finish at the end. So there we go. So pick up your loaf, put the seam sides facing upwards and the smooth side facing down and lay it into your basket just like that. Lovely. And then fold over the napkin so all the bread is sealed. We don't want the air to get in at the bread because it will form a skin. So now let's talk proofing. This does take a little bit of time because it's a big loaf of bread. So roughly, depending on how warm your kitchen is, it'll take around an hour and 45 minutes to around two and a half hours or so. Over this time, you want it to get nice and big, light, fluffy, airy, and then it's going to be perfect to be baked off. Okay, so while this is proofing, Kevin and I are going to grab a cup of tea. So it's been a full two hours. So let me show you what your bread should look like when it's proofed. So this is well risen. And you're talking about like one and a half to two times the size. I can feel that the dough is not as cold as it was. So that's great. And when you touch it, it feels kind of airy under your fingers. And it's not as dense or as heavy. And another way to tell if it's properly proofed is give it a little bit of a push. And if the dough rises back slowly, that means it's ready to go into the oven. If it springs back really fast, then it needs a little bit more time to proof. But this is looking perfect. Okay, so let's talk baking. This is really important when it comes to your sourdough. So I don't want to skip over this part. There's a few different methods that you can do. I'm going to show you three. So number one is baking off your dough in a Dutch oven. Now I'm sure you've seen this online, they make an amazing loaf of bread. What happens is that steam is created. Once you put on that lid, it steams the bread, and then you take it off and it continues to cook and the lovely thick walls of the Dutch oven just really retain that heat. Our second method is another easy way to steam. What you do is put a little cake pan into the oven with some water in it. And then you put in your bread and as the bread bakes, it creates steam and it will just give you a lovely shiny crust. So our third option is a fantastic one. And I do this all the time. It's almost as good as using a Dutch oven. In my oven, I have a cast iron tray, use a thick baking tray if you have one. So here I have a tray that's been floured. Now carefully turn out your dough onto the tray. So this is a lovely shape, but just go in with your hands and just make it a bit of a tighter ball. Just make sure it's nice and round. Now using a sharp knife or a blade, I'm going to score the top of my bread. So I'm going to do a nice big score down the middle. You can do any kind of design that you like. Gemma, why do you score your bread? So that's a good question. You might think it's just for looks, but actually it's to let out steam while it bakes. If you don't score your bread, your bread can kind of burst or like kind of crack on one side. So you want to make sure that you have some sort of marking on the top to let that out. Over my bread dough, I am going to put a metal bowl. Now you need a metal bowl because it's going to go into the oven. Look at your kitchen mixer because that's exactly what this bowl is. So now just put over your metal bowl and be careful not to touch the dough. You just want to have it around us. And this is perfect. This is our baking vessel. So now baking bread, bread loves a really hot oven. So when you're pre-heating your oven, preheat it to 450 degrees Fahrenheit or 225 degrees Celsius. But then when you actually put in your bread, immediately turn it down to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celsius. Okay. So after 30 minutes, you remove the bowl. You don't want it to steam for the whole amount of time, just for 30 minutes. Then you leave it uncovered. Let it bake for roughly around another 30 minutes again in that nice hot, dry oven. Check out this beautiful loaf of bread. Now I don't want you to go anywhere because I want to show you a few things. You see here how the crust is nice and shiny. That is because we steamed the bread. This step is super, super important. It gives you a lovely, shiny, chewy crust. So you don't want to forget that. Now, if you look down here at the bottom of the bread, it kind of goes up like this, and that's called oven spring. Now we got that because we put it on a preheated tray. So putting it on that cast iron did it the world of good. And as you can see here, our nice big deep score makes our bread look beautiful. So really get in there with your knife and do a nice deep score. I mean, this looks like a legit artisanal loaf of sourdough bread. Like it's amazing. And you can do this too at home. So now, of course, the tale of a great sourdough, pick it up and give it a little bit of a squeeze. Do you hear that? A lovely, thick crust. And that's what the dry heat does in the oven. After you take off the bowl, it gives you that lovely thick crust. This is amazing. So let's have a look at the inside because I want to show you all that time waiting, what it creates. So there you go. Straight away, we can see all our hard work paying off. You see those lovely bubbles in your crumb. That is from the fermenting process, from letting it sit over time and gases build up and getting trapped within the gluten. The one thing I love about sourdough is that each loaf is unique. So they'll taste similar and they'll have a similar texture, but they're all going to be totally different. And that's what's beautiful about them. My gosh, the longer you keep your starter, the better the flavor. So in a few months time, your sourdough will be even more developed. This is beautiful. It's sour, it's salty, has amazing flavor and the texture is fantastic. Like any good sourdough, it has a lovely crisp crust. This is absolutely amazing. So it's just the beginning of our sourdough journey. I have lots more to come. Also, make sure you check out all of my other bread videos, and I'll see you back here really soon.