Homemade delicious artisan sourdough bread

Make delicious artisan homemade sourdough bread in your Dutch oven the easy way. Being able to enjoy sourdough bread like this feels like a luxury. A crunchy crust with a pillowy crumb inside spread it with some grass-fed butter and raw honey, and I could devour slice after slice all day long.

I love my sourdough starter. It gives us delicious bread that is easy to make and always turns out well. We love our sourdough so much that the kids choose a name for it. They called it Bob, and after every feeding, the sourdough starter ‘Bob’ gets a kiss from the youngest. And that might just be the secret ingredient in making truly delicious bread.

Making homemade bread is such a wonderful skill to learn, since you always get rewarded in such a wonderful way. And learning more traditional skills and crafts is so important and deeply satisfying. If you want to know why you might want to learn more old-fashioned crafts like bread baking. Then why not pop over to ‘The importance of learning old-fashioned crafts & vintage skills‘ after you’ve made your sourdough bread.

Because sourdough really is delicious and not at all sour. The bread just has an extra depth of flavour. It gets its name from the lactic acid bacteria that are in the sourdough starter. Their sour flavour can become stronger if you don’t feed your starter enough. But a properly fed sourdough starter will have a lovely yeast smell, just like rising bread.

Why sourdough bread is easier than you think

I find that baking bread with sourdough is far easier than instant dried yeast-leavened bread. Since it is less likely to overflow out of the bowl when you happen to forget you were leaving the bread to rise. A problem I frequently had before switching over to sourdough. If you do prefer to bake bread with instant yeast however then I would recommend you try my instant yeast bread recipe.

And because of the longer rising time, the gluten structure develops regardless of your kneading skills. Which means that you will have a tasty loaf even if you are just a beginner baker. Because every home baker was a beginner at some point. Who would over or underproof their bread. But by making a slow-rising sourdough, you will have a higher chance of success. Because the slower rise will allow you to better observe when the optimal rise is.

How to know your dough has risen enough

If you’re wondering if your dough is over-proofed, then simply poke it gently. If your dough doesn’t want to spring back up, it will most likely be over-proofed. In which case, you will want to possibly reshape it and try again. Or just pop it into the oven and don’t mind having a slightly deflated loaf. After all, when the kids are hungry they don’t care what their bread looks like.

However, under-proofed dough will spring back completely when you poke it. In which case, you can just wait a bit longer before you gently poke it again to check if it is done rising.

Perfectly risen dough will spring back about halfway when you poke it. And because it still has some spring to it, it will be able to expand in the oven. Giving you that much-desired oven spring that makes your loaf look so gorgeous.

Be kind to yourself and embrace the learning process

And if you do find that your loaves are under- or over-proofed, make sure to not be too hard on yourself. With time and perseverance, you will improve. I’ve had many loaves that were over-proofed or under-proofed. Because life happens, and sometimes that means that things don’t go perfectly. Because we all just need to develop our skills one by one. But when we sliced into all these imperfect loaves, they were still delicious and have a depth of flavour that you cannot get from store-bought bread.

How to make sourdough bread in winter & summer

Throughout the year, temperatures can fluctuate in our homes, just like they do outdoors. Sourdough, just like all other ferments will work faster or slower depending on the temperature. So you cannot expect your sourdough to rise for the same amount of time throughout the year. Therefore it is important, that you always observe your sourdough and work from your observations and not merely on timestamps.

For instance, depending on the time of year, my sourdough can be made in roughly 24 hours or can take 3 to 4 days. So you must make sure that you always follow your sourdough. Look at how bubbly your starter is and not at how many hours have passed by since last feeding it. Go by how much your dough has risen, not by how much time has passed. To estimate if it is time to put it into a banneton basket or bowl.

If you find it difficult to estimate how much your dough or starter has risen. Then you can let your dough rise in a jar or other cylindrical container. That way, you can mark where the original height of your starter or dough was and easily how much it has risen. After which, you can shape it, put it in the fridge and follow the recipe as usual.

If you want your sourdough starter or dough to rise faster. You can use warm water and even warm up your bowl so that everything is about body temperature. This will help your sourdough rise faster, especially in the winter times.

How to make sourdough bread

Delicious homemade sourdough bread baked in a Dutch oven that will nourish both body and soul. Don’t be intimidated by bread baking. Give it a try and see how easy it can be. Because even imperfect loaves are delicious and something to be proud of.

Makes: 1 large loaf
Prep: 15 min
Rise: 24 hours
Bake: 45 min

Sourdough bread ingredients:

450 gr of plain flour of your choice (if you want to incorporate wholewheat then I would use 150 wholewheat with 300 plain flour)
250 ml of water
10 gr of salt
100 gr of bubbly active starter (just means that it is still growing, not flat or already risen to the highest it can go)

Preparation

I added times for when I like to do all the steps. But you don’t have to do it exactly at these times. I just added them in the hopes that it might be easier to understand and give you a bit more of a guide.

Feeding your starter (8 am)

Feed your starter as usual with a 50/50 water to flour ratio, ensuring that you have at least 100gr of starter that you can take.

Depending on how cold or warm your kitchen is, it might take longer for your starter to reach peak bubbliness. In the summer, 8 am, is the best time for me to feed my starter. But in the winter, my kitchen is so cold that I start my starter the evening before just after dinner.

Don’t have your own sourdough starter yet? Visit my tutorial on how to start a sourdough starter.

Mixing the dough (12 pm)

Add the flour to a large to medium sized bowl and mix in the salt. Then add water and your active sourdough starter to the bowl and mix until well combined. Then cover with a damp tea towel and leave to rest for 30 minutes, this moment is called autolyse.

Although normally speaking you don’t add the salt and your starter during this moment. But I found that it made no difference in my final bread result. So for simplicities sake, I just mix everything together at the same time. Although if you prefer to add your salt and starter afterwards, you are more than welcome to do so.

If in winter you’ve started your sourdough starter the evening before and it is already bubbly before 12 pm. You can always mix your dough a bit sooner. Since winter is a tad colder, the rising will take longer anyways.

Stretch and fold dough then let rise (12.30 pm)

The stretch and fold method is pretty self-explanatory it’s simply the act of grabbing a piece of your dough, stretching it upwards and folding it over your dough ball.

You try and stretch it as far as you can go before you fold it over your dough. After doing each stretch and fold, you turn your bowl quarter, so that you end up going all the way around your dough. With the result of having stretched every side at least once. This will give some strength to your dough as well as give structure to your final crumb.

You simply continue doing just that all around the bowl. I like to do the stretching and folding 3 times and wait 30 minutes in between each stretch. I find that that way I get just the right sized holes in my bread. While also having a dough that is strong enough to hold its shape.

During winter, the initial rise can sometimes take a great deal longer. So if evening comes and your dough is not yet doubled in size, then depending on its size, you can either leave it on the counter overnight or place it in the fridge to slow down fermentation. Then in the morning, you can take it out again and leave it to rise further.

Between stretching and folding, cover your dough with a damp tea towel.

Shaping the dough and second rise (7 pm)

When your dough has doubled in size, you can start to shape it and prepare it for its second rise.

Flour your counter and gently scrape out your dough onto the floured surface. Then shape your dough into a ball so that it will fit into your Dutch oven. Gently flatten your dough. Then grab one side of your dough and fold it over the dough to the centre. Repeat this with all sides of your dough until you feel you have a reasonably firm dough ball or cob.

To add extra strength to the dough, you can scrape it with seam side down along your counter. When you do this, you want to ensure that you keep the round shape you worked on creating.

If you have a banneton basket you can use that for your second rise. Otherwise, you can use a similar-sized bowl with a clean tea towel. Make sure you flour everything well to prevent any sticky messes.

You can add some extra flour to the outside of your dough before turning it into your banneton basket or teatowel lined bowl. Place your dough with the seam side up, then cover with a damp tea towel and leave in the fridge overnight.

Next day scoring and baking (8 am)

Preheat the oven with the Dutch oven in there, at 250 C for 15 minutes or until good and hot. If your Dutch oven takes longer to get to temperature. You might want to preheat it for more to 30 minutes to possibly even an hour. Since my Dutch oven is a traditional Dutch braadpan, I find that 15 minutes is sufficient.

Take your Dutch oven out of your preheated oven and flour the bottom of your Dutch oven to prevent the dough from sticking onto the bottom. Then take the dough out of the fridge and place seam side down into the hot Dutch oven. By flipping the banneton basket upside down into your Dutch oven. If you don’t dare to flip your bread into your Dutch oven, you can also first transfer your dough onto some baking parchment and then lower it down into your Dutch oven.

Score the top of the bread with a lame or be very careful when you use a bare razor blade. You can create whatever pattern you prefer. You can go as simple as one long line across the length of the dough, score a plain cross, or even score a pattern as elaborate as a wheat sheaf. I like to score a cross with small cuts inbetween the larger cuts. This way it almost looks like a wheel.

Bake your bread for 25 minutes at 250 C with the lid on the Dutch oven. This will keep the moisture trapped inside for maximum oven spring. After 25 minutes, you can take the lid off and lower the oven temperature to 220 C. Then, bake the bread without a lid for another 20 minutes.

Leave your bread to cool on a drying rack, ideally for 1 to 2 hours.

Slice into your homemade sourdough bread with family & friends

Cut nice thick slices from your loaf and liberally smother in butter before drizzling lots of raw honey on top. Then proceed to enjoy each luxurious bite, and you might even want to share it with your friends and family. And if you want to share your delicious creation with the world. Then I would love it if you would tag me on Instagram so I can admire your homemade sourdough bread too.

And if you have any questions, just send me a DM or leave a comment down below so that I can answer them.

Want to make some more sourdough recipes? why not try one of these:

• Sourdough discard shortcrust pastry an easy recipe
• Sourdough crepes recipe made from discard
• Nourishing sourdough scones an easy recipe
• Easy chicken & leek pie with sourdough discard crust

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