How to Make the Best Sourdough Bread Without a Dutch Oven

Ciao ragazzi! Hi guys! What are we going to do today, amore? We're making sourdough bread. Yes, so my amore, Jesse is going to make you the bread, the best bread ever. This is our favorite bread, number one. Number two, we are making it without all of the fancy schmancy tools that you usually see in recipes, so I'm going to teach you how you can make an amazing sourdough using things that you probably already have in your kitchen. Yes, but that is the secret sauce, right? Yes, so we're using my sourdough starter. We will make another video showing you how to make this. Yes. So stay tuned for that. If you have your own sourdough starter, obviously you can use that. Okay, so I'm going to be the director, she's going to be the cook, so let's go! What do you need to do first? All right guys, so put on the hat, obviously. I'm so honored you're letting me wear your hat. Good, good. Okay, let's teach the people. So first, like I said, you're going to need sourdough starter to make your sourdough bread. Yes. If you don't have sourdough starter, you can't make this recipe yet, but you'll be making your sourdough starter with our recipe that's coming soon, and then you can join us on this recipe. Okay, you want to show the tools, but what is here? Ha ha! It's my nose! It's the nose! You don't know! Okay, let's put it first. Don't dare to shame me for my recipe. Okay, terrible, terrible. Okay, what do you need? You only need four ingredients. So your sourdough starter. Yes. Water, which we have over here. Yes. Water, salt. Alessio salt and? Alessio salt and bread flour. Okay, perfect. Next up, you are going to measure out your water. So I'm going to use a scale because I think it's more precise and we always use a scale when we're making anything in this house. So I'm just going to add my bowl and I'm going to tear it. We're adding 300 grams of filtered water. Let's see the disaster. Oh no, too much, too much, too much. You need to be really exact with the measurement, Amore? I'm going to be exact because I like to be exact, but you don't have to be perfectly exact. That's pretty much close enough. Okay, now we're exact. Perfect, okay. So into the 300 gram water, you're going to add 100 grams of your sourdough starter. Okay, how do you measure this? With a spoon. Oh, with a spoon. Okay, yeah, 300 plus 100 is 400. Well, I'm going to tear it again, but I wanted to say, so I fed my sourdough starter this morning around nine o'clock and then I let it rise up so that it's doubled in size and you can see how bubbly it is. Let me see. Okay, I can see the bubbling. So it means ready? It's ready to use. Okay, ready to use. So we're going to tear this again. Now we're going to add 100 grams into the water. So do you want to show them what it looks like going into the water? Yes. Because it's kind of fun. It's kind of fun? Yeah. That's a fun. Look how floaty it is. It's floaty, yeah. That's also how you know it's ready to use because it has enough air and bubbles to make your bread rise. Oh, I'm going to do what you said. Close enough. At this point, I would usually discard a little bit more on the starter and then feed it again so it's ready for the next time. But right now I'm going to put it aside because I'm actually going to make two loaves of bread, so we're still going to use it. So now we're ready to add our flour, our farina. We're going to tear again and we're going to look at our notes to make sure we get the right amount. 450 grams of bread flour. Always close enough. It's not a perfect chef. Now we're going to do 10 grams of salt. 10 grams of salt. Supposed to be easy this. This was easy. 10. Finally. But you know you should put a little bit more because you wrung all the other ingredients. No. Okay. Go ahead. Now that we have that, we're going to just combine it with our trusty wooden spoon here and you're just going to combine it together until all of the dry pieces are incorporated into the wet pieces. To look a little something like this. Now what we're going to do is we're just going to cover this with a dish towel and let it rest for 30 minutes and then we'll be right back. I'm going to show you guys how I feed the starter after I deplete it from baking. I've taken two bread worth amounts of starter out of here. So 200 grams. And right now, according to this, I have about 70 grams of starter. I'm going to take all-purpose flour and water and we're going to make some magic. We're going to add 100 grams of all-purpose flour to our container. Okay. Perfect. 100 grams. Nice. And then? Then we're going to add 100 grams of water on top of that. Okay. It's okay. 105. Close enough. Then this is what it looks like. Then what is the cigarette? Like if it's missing just a small piece, it keeps feeding, right? If you're not familiar with sourdough starter, we're going to get more into it in another video. But basically what this is, is a wild yeast that I have captured from the environment. And now I feed it because it's alive with flour and water. And that gives it food to, I guess, keep the colony going. So even if you have a little bit, you should be okay. Just never use everything of your starter because then you'll have to start up from scrap. So always leave a little bit left. I usually leave about 50 to 70 grams and then I feed it with 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of water. So now you're going to stir it all up. Get rid of all the dry pieces. I'll let this rest. And then when it's kind of started feeding, I guess, I'll show you guys what it looks like. 30 minutes later. Wait a second. 30 minutes later and you have your hat sideways. Sideways. What? So the green need to go to the other side. No, because it's backwards that way. Oh, for the camera? No, for the velcro. After 30 minutes, you're going to do your first round of stretch and folds. What is a stretch and fold? Well, you basically take a piece of the dough, stretch it up as far as you can, and then fold it over. You're going to go all the way around the dough a couple of times. So stretch, fold. You're going to go all the way around, make your little ball here, stretch, oops, and fold, stretch, fold. I'm going to go around probably two or three times. After this, you're going to let it rest another 30 minutes and we're going to come back for the second stretch and fold. How many do you need to do? I'm going to do three total. This is the bulk fermentation portion. So the dough is fermenting, rising, kind of getting all the bubbly stuff inside, and we're just helping that along. After every stretch and fold, you're going to cover it when you rest it. So now we're going to do the second one. Same thing, stretch it up. You can see it's a lot more stretchy. Fold it over, stretch it up, fold it over, and we're going to go around just one time. The chef is late. Chef? I need to follow you? Chef? First of all, no hat. Then you came like pissed. Look at this bread. Where is your hat? Yes, chef. There we go. We're here for the final stretch and fold. The final stretch and fold. So we really want to be gentle, but we want to be intentional with it. You don't want to be too rough because you don't want to mess up all the bubbles that have been created inside. So going around again. Look, Mitja's coming. Ciao, Mitja. After you do your last stretch and fold, you're going to cover it again. And you're going to wait. I wait at least three and a half hours. Okay, that's a long time, but we need it to keep rising, keep fermenting. So we're going to cover this and leave it for three and a half hours. And then we're going to do the pre-shaping situation. That is perfect. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. We're back. We're showering. We're whatever. It's pajama time. Don't look at me. All right, so we've let it rest. And now we're going to take it out onto a floured surface, which I don't have ready. You're not ready. Take it out with the stretch and fold method. So we're going to stretch it and fold it to help loosen the dough from the side of the All right, there we go. There we go. Now, yeah, yeah, came perfectly. Look how nice and bubbly that is. Oh, let me see. I need that. Yeah, move side down, folded side up. We're going to do another stretch and fold gently just to make it into sort of like a little ball shape. And this part is sticky underneath, so you can use it to kind of like seal your dough like you can see bubbles. I cannot see it from the camera. Let me see. Show a bubble. Oh, well, here, but. Oh, wow. OK, OK. Now I figure it out. OK. Now, after you do this, you're going to flip it over like this. And we're going to brush off this dough, this flour, flour. Yeah, we're going to set it down like that. OK. Yes. Now we're going to take our towel again and let it rest another 30 minutes. Another 30 minutes. Yes. Wow. OK. It's a lot of resting. Not date. Oh, the sourdough starter. Look how much it's grown. So when we fed it before. Yes. It was maybe here. Yes. So it's already doubled in size. And probably over the next several hours, it's going to go all the way up to the top. So triple in size. And then I'll probably feed it again in the morning. Look, you missed a big bubble. Bubbles keep coming up. Look at all those bubbles. And you can see on the side, too. Maybe you can see on the hair. Beautiful. Yes, they are. OK. So now is the part where we're waiting for these to rest. We're going to prepare our homemade banneton baskets. So one of the tools that a lot of people use are banneton baskets. We don't have any. So I'm going to use whatever I have at home, which is going to be a metal mixing bowl, this wooden fruit bowl. If you don't have any round bowls, you can use a casserole dish if you want to. Anything you have, you're just going to use that with a dish towel. Put it down inside. Then you're going to flour. Don't even need this if you don't have it. You can just kind of gently flour with your hands. But I'm going to use this. And guys, you need to just smash the like button just for this amazing tips. Just get ready for tomorrow's filming when we show you how to bake without a Dutch oven. All right, so we have our floured surface. It's sprinkled all over the place, guys. Yeah, on the side, just so it doesn't stick and it's easy to remove. It's time to shape our bread. We have our little dough here. I'm just going to flour the surface a little bit. Now we're going to flip them over gently. Because we don't want to pop all the bubbles that are inside. Okay, so now we're going to stretch it out to make kind of a square shape. Just gently stretching the corners. We have our square, rectangle, whatever shape. This is what I do to make sort of a round bread. It's not a rectangular batard. It's a bowl. I'm not sure how you say it. A round bread. But I do it in a way to make a lot of tension on the top of the bread. So you get a nice oven spring and a nice ear. So we're going to shape it kind of like what you would a batard. So you're going to take one side, fold it over to the middle like that. Then take the other side and fold that over and seal up your little envelope. Then you're going to take it from the top of the bottom, whatever. You're going to start stretching and rolling. So you're going to fold. And this is going to create a lot of tension on the dough to make a nice spring and ear. So you're just going to keep rolling and folding it over. Then once you have your little log, there are going to be these little flaps on each end. You're going to take that, stretch it over and fold it down. Again, to create some nice tension on top. Look at that. You're going to stretch this down. Perfect. Look at the professional. All right. Now, now that that's like that, we have our little loaf. We're going to gently just tug on the sides again to just create even more tension on the top. Because what you want is a lot of tension going across the top to make a really nice spring. You can do this kind of folding it under or pulling it towards you and just kind of curling the dough under. Doesn't have to be perfect. You're going to be left with something generally like this. And then what we're going to do is we're going to take our little basket. You're going to take your dough up and the smooth side is going to go down like that. Okay. Then you're going to close it up. You're going to put it in the refrigerator overnight. Overnight. And I'm going to do this and we're going to check in in the morning. The chef is straight. Late. Yeah. You know, when you're baking, it's important to take your time and to not feel rushed. You have all the time in the world. How do I look? Nah. Terrible? No. Let's start the process for baking. Preheat your oven. I'm going to bake my bread on a pizza stone. But if you don't have this, don't panic. You can use a pan, like a cooking pan. Cooking pan. I'm using this in place of the Dutch oven. So I'm going to show you guys how I bake the bread in the oven without the Dutch oven and still get a nice oven rise, a nice ear on the bread and all this stuff. So first you're going to need this. Then you're going to take another pan and flip it upside down. But first of all. Yeah. So you need to put that in on the top. Yeah, wherever it is for you, just to have a space for the bread to rise. Ours was too low, so it was going to keep the bread down. So you're going to take this and you're going to flip it over on top. And this is going to act to kind of help keep some moisture around the bread. Because what you want, the reason people cook in a Dutch oven is because it keeps humidity while you're cooking and it allows the bread to rise before it forms a crust. When it forms a crust, it's hard and it can't rise anymore. So we want to keep some humidity going. So we're going to bake our bread here. We're going to put this on top to kind of help block the heat. Then we're going to take another pan. I'm going to put some water in here and we're going to put it in there. We're going to preheat the oven to 500 degrees. This is just my method to keep some moisture in the oven while you're baking the bread. So this is our setup. Yeah. In the past, I would put the water down here below, but I found that it creates more moisture being on the same level as the bread. So this is our setup. Now we're going to preheat to 500. I am using the convection oven. If you don't have convection, you can use your regular oven. It's fine. Okay. So you've got your dough. You're just going to flip it over. Look at that. Now, some people like to put a lot of flour on the top. If you're going to do a fancy design, I prefer to kind of brush off as much flour as possible. So I'm just kind of scraping off some extra flour that might have fallen and gotten kind of concentrated in a specific area. Now we're going to do our cut. So if you're not familiar. Yes. Most often you probably see people using like a little wooden tool that has a little razor blade on the end of it. We don't have that, obviously. So we're going to just use a sharp knife from our kitchen. And the key is don't cut straight up and down. You want to cut at an angle so that you get a nice lift. And I'm just going to do something really simple called like a half moon. I'm going to start at one side. I'm going to gently slice all the way to the other side. Now, you probably won't get a nice, perfect cut the first time. So just kind of go back in, work your knife down inside until you have probably about half inch or a little bit more cut in. And you can also go back and do some fancy patterns if you want to. I'm just going to go simple and do this nice half moon slice like that. Just make sure you go from one end all the way to the other end. Grab some parchment paper. And you're going to gently shift your dough over there. And now we're going to put it into the oven. So stone and we're going to close it up. Now we're going to lower the heat immediately to 465 or 470. Why? Because that's just what I've learned gives you the best results. OK. But see, it's still too hot. We're going to just let a little bit of heat out of the oven. Typically, when you're baking or cooking, you don't want to let heat out of the oven. We're trying to let some heat out so that it'll reduce the temperature. I actually do have the answer. So when I heated it up to 500, I wanted the stone to be really hot. But now I want the temperature of the oven to be a little bit cooler. OK. We're going to let this kind of air out a little bit. Let's see where we are now. I think I'm even going to lower it to 465. OK, so we're going to go up to 465. Yeah, go down to 452. Yes. We're going to set a timer for 20 minutes. 20 minutes. And we're going to check back in like three or four minutes for a little trick. OK. Since we don't have a Dutch oven, what we're trying to do is create that heat, that humidity, that steam. So one of the tricks that I like to do is take a little bit of water. If you have a spray bottle, this will be much easier. But I'm not fancy like that. So I'm just going to use a little cup. What you want to do is be very careful. You want to open the oven. This is for the people that don't have a spray bottle. If you have a spray bottle, you can mist it in and that's fine. I don't have that. So I'm going to take this. I'm going to open it up and I'm going to very gently pop and close it up. OK. And you can do that, you know, for the first five to seven minutes. Every couple of minutes. I've only done it a couple of times each time. And the bread always turns out fine. But it's just a way if you feel like you need more humidity in there, steam, you can do that. Actually, we have the spray bottle. It was always over there. Alessio told me we have one. OK, sure. Well, it is. Who don't have it, what they need to do. And then let's see who have the spray bottle, what you need to do. There we go. And this you do it for six minutes. No, no, just in the first six minutes. If you feel like you want to do it a couple of times, you can. Yeah, there's not a real science to this part. OK. All right, guys, our first 15 minutes are up. So we're going to open up this oven and OK, it's kind of steamy. But you can see already our bread puffed up like crazy. So we're going to take off the top pan. You can leave the water pan in there, but we're going to take this one off. All right. Look how poofy. It's so cute. OK, so we're going to leave that in there another 15 minutes. But what we're going to do is we're going to lower the temperature again. I'm going to lower it to 410 this time. We're going to let it cook another 15 minutes. She's cute. Wow. Let me do a circle. Cute. It's cute. If you want your bread darker than this, you can leave it longer than 15 minutes. OK, 20, 25 minutes. It's just to darken up the crust. Now is the sad part because you smell delicious bread, you want to cut into it immediately. No, you have to wait at least two hours before cutting the bread. Two hours. So I know it's terrible, but this is one of the most important parts of baking. You want all the heat to release. If you cut the bread too early, you're going to have like a sticky gummy texture of the bread inside. You want the heat to release and that's going to dry out the middle of the bread. It's going to be so much better. Just trust me. Wait to cut your bread. If you have a thermometer, you want it to be around 90 degrees Fahrenheit inside the bread. Two hours minimum. Wow. Hear that? Yeah. Nice hollow sound. Here. All right. I'm excited to check it out. You never know. You never know until you cut inside. This is the time. Yes, it is time to cut this little bread. So it's in temperature? Yes. We waited until it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit inside. We used this little thermometer we got from Amazon. Now we're ready to cut. Go. Open. Wow. Delicious. Cut the other side. Look how tall it is. It's this. Cut the other side too. You're not supposed to cut it this way. Yeah, but we're going to eat everything. Well, let me put it down then. Because this is what we're going to eat right now. For storage, you're going to need to put it like that, right? Yes. I say put it down so that it kind of acts like its own little bread box. Because the crust is hard and inside you keep the bread nice. I would leave it like this for a couple of days. If you're going to have your bread for longer than that, either buy a real bread box or you could put it in Ziploc bags. You can freeze it. It freezes really well. Put it in the refrigerator. Whatever you want. Antemio, Ivo, Intenso. What do you think? This is the perfect combination. You make this your own fresh bread. The outside is nice and crispy so you have a nice crunch when you bite into it. Inside is nice and soft and springy. It's the perfect combination. Oh my god. So do you want to say bye to hard guys? Look, she keeps eating. So to the next tutorial guys! Ciao ragazzi! Bye guys! I could eat this whole thing for dinner right now. Yeah. You have something you're cooking for dinner? Of course, but... What are you making? Bread and olive oil. Something healthy? Yes. I'm curious to see the other one. Don't finish it! I'm joking. Who is so mad? What the heck was that?