How to Bake Sourdough Bread [A Whiter Shade]

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This is a sourdough bread based on a mix of 60% wheat flour and 40% sifted rye flour [Rågsikt in Swedish] to make it more rustic, tasty and healthy than ordinary white bread.

by Gustav Skans

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Day 1 (Primo)

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Day 1 (morning): Take out your sourdough starter from the fridge and wake it up with a stir and a fresh spoon of water and flour. Here you see a starter based on wheat flour rather than rye.

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I have a separate guide on how to make such a starter if you need to make one. The one I have described there is with rye flour, but you can make a similar one using a whiter wheat flour mix.

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Weigh ingredients: 100g water, 40g starter and finally 100 g flour in a suitable container to make the leavening.

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Leavening prepared mixed slightly with a spoon.

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Put a lid on it, but with a crack for air to let it breath. So, make leavening in the morning and leave it till evening (just listen to the sound of that weird sentence...)

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Ah, one more thing: take care of the starter; Give it some food replacing what you just took. That would be approximately two tablespoons of flour and water respectively.

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Put back in fridge once it looks happy like this again.

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Day 1 (In the Evening [LZ]): The leavening looks like it should here, live and well with bubbles popping.

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The leaven is mixed into 500g of water. You will see that it floats due to all the sourdough gasses. Then add most of the flour, but not all, just enough to turn it into a thick batter. Salt goes in!

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This is the batter which you mix lightly and then leave alone for some 30 minutes to hydrate properly.

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Once the batter has rested for 30 minutes you can add the remaining flour to turn it into a dough with a baker's percentage of approximately 70%, i.e. water weight of 500g / 0.7=714g of flour.

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The dough mixed and ready to slowly rise during the night. I cover it with a damp kitchen towel placing it in a cooler place of about 10 degrees Celsius. Good night.

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Day 2 (finale!)

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Day 2 (in the morning): This how the dough looks after a full night's rising in cool temperature. Nice and fluffy.

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Sprinkle some flour on your work space and drop the dough onto it. It is sticky, so wet your hands and improve its texture by stretching and folding a few times before letting it rest an hour or so.

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After this first stretch and fold, let it rest for atleast an hour to slowly gain some room temperature after last night's 10-degree ordeal (Celsius).

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Put some coarse rye flour or other rough flour of your preference in a basket. Stretch and fold the dough a second time before placing it in a basket to let it rise some more. Turn on oven to max!

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Remember, full blast.

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Also make sure you pre-heat whatever suitable really big pot you have available at this stage.

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I usually even turn off our fire alarm (temporarily) while doing this bread because there tends to be rather a warm breeze up there...

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Once the dough is in the basket, clean the surface. I use a really good scraper intended for paint removal an such. Much better than ordinary kitchen tools, and cheaper (make sure to buy stainless).

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The dough has rested an risen a bit more while the oven and the cast iron pot has been pre-heated to the maximum (250-275C). Basket is almost full, compare size with finished bread later.

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Tip the dough into the hot pan and snip a few cuts in the surface with a pair of scissors to allow it to crack beautifully.

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Those are the rough snips I made just before putting on the lid closing the oven.

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Hot lid goes on. Everything is hot as the oven will go here. I close the oven and turn it down to 250 degrees Celsius.

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I lift the lid to let out any steam and to see how its doing after 20 minutes. Lid goes back on for 20 minutes more. Notice surface is cracking rather nicely.

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There, it's ready after a total of 40 minutes in 250 degrees Celsius.

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See, nice cracks from where you snipped with scissors. Big bread, notice the little basket compared to earlier. Let it cool without cover in an airy basket or similar for as long as you baked it...

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...before slicing and having a taste. The wet 70% dough allows nice cavities like these to develop.

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If you find the bread too big for you, just half the recipe and keep half of the leaven in the fridge for some other day in the week. That way you will always have fresh bread ready.

You're Done!

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