Want to be just like Taylor and become a sourdough expert? I’ve been baking this bread for a few years & get loads of compliments. Last year I baked well over 25 loaves and gave them as gifts. Everyone raved about the bread & I’m pretty sure the only reason I get dinner invites is because there’s a chance I might bring bread!
A bit of warning: making sourdough is best compared to caring for a tamagotchi. It can take several days to “revive” your starter & a couple more to make actual bread. Prepare yourself for a lifetime of labor & so much flour all over your kitchen, you’ll swear Charlie Sheen is your roommate. All that said, it’s hard to screw up & you’ll end up with the most delicious and healthy bread ever. I’m pretty sure you’ll save money along the way. I suggest keeping an eye out for sale flour (Costco sometimes has King Arthur bread flour on sale) but just remember to check the expiration date!
You’ll need to start with (drumroll) starter. A sourdough starter is kind of like propagating plants. You probably have a friend who has some & if you do, you can just take a little of theirs & use it to make more! It’s easy to go from having a tablespoon of starter to having a fridge full of it! Don’t have a bread making friend? No worries! Order some directly from King Arthur Baking Company or make your own sourdough starter from scratch!
You will need a food scale for this next part.
Once you have starter, you need to feed it. I use 1:1:1 ratio. You weigh the amount of starter in grams and then add equal parts flour and water. So, if your starter weighs 100 grams, you’d add 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of water and then mix it up.
Feed it for a couple of days until it doubles in size within 6 hours. *Use a rubber band to mark where the mixture starts to make it easy to see where it is at 6 hours. You might need to feed it a few times to get it to double that quickly.
So after you feed your starter and give it about 6 hours to double in size, then you take 150g of starter, 300g of water, 10g of salt, and 500g of flour and mix that together into a shaggy dough. Cover it for about a half hour and then do what’s called stretch and fold - just lift a corner of the dough up and stretch it out, then fold it to the center and do that 3 or 4 times. Repeat that 2-3 times over the next few hours. It’s forgiving. Don’t stress.
Let it bulk ferment covered on the counter - I usually do this overnight, or if you mix dough in the morning, you can let it go until dinner time.
It’ll double or triple in size. Then take it out, stretch it out, fold it over itself a few times and work it into a ball and stick it in a bowl covered in the fridge for an hour up to 24 hours.
Then preheat the oven to 425 with a Dutch oven inside, turn your dough over onto parchment paper, score it with a sharp knife. You can cut an X or maybe draw Travis Kelce’s face in the dough. Then stick it in the Dutch oven, cover and bake for 25 min. Take the lid off and bake for another 25 min. Cool, slice, slather with butter and you’re ready to sing “It’s a loaf story, baby just say yeast.”
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Questions? I’m usually accessible via email or find me on Instagram @tadonair!