A few years ago I was watching a documentary called Cooked. One episode was about bread; sourdough, specifically. I became utterly fascinated by the fact that sourdough has only 3 ingredients: water, flour, and salt.

The below post is my on-going recipe that I keep updated as I learn more about sourdough and improve my recipe. Hopefully it can help you.

Ingredients

• 380g sourdough mother
• 540g warm water; should be slightly warmer than lukewarm
• 900g flour
  • 600g bread flour
  • 300g all-purpose flour
• 22g salt

Recipe

Dissolve sourdough mother with the water in a large bowl. Once well mixed, pour in all of the flour. Mix the flour until it's a disgusting goopy mess. Cover with a towel and let sit for 20 minutes.

Pour on the salt evenly and knead for around 5 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl and place the dough into it. Let it sit for 45 minutes.

Repeat the following steps 4-ish times:

• Carefully scoop the dough out onto a flat surface. Grab the edges of the dough and gently spread it until it's in a rough rectangle slightly larger than a piece of paper.
• Do an “envelope fold” which is hard to explain, so watch this video
• Put back into the bowl and cover with a towel; let sit for 45 minutes

Once the dough is looking fluffy like a marshmallow, you can stop the above loop.

Scoop out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Gently press on the dough to pop the large air bubbles. If you prefer larger holes in your crumb then you can skip this step. I personally press the dough enough to pop most holes.

Split the dough into two equal parts, form each part into a ball. This part is also hard to explain so watch this video. Place the dough onto parchment paper and let sit for around 2 hours when the dough has risen by quite a bit.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees with dutch oven inside of it. Once heated, place the parchment paper and dough into the dutch oven and cover.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, then reduce temp to 400 and take the top off the lid for another 15-20 minutes until it's brown to your likeness.

Internal temp should be 190-200F and thumping the bottom of the loaf should give a hollow sound.