Another Cooking Class! Sourdough Bread

Missy Tippens

I got to take another great cooking class at Cook's Warehouse last week! This time, I learned to make sourdough bread with chef Sarah Dodge. It was not a hands-on class this time. It was more of a demo so she could show us some of the major steps and also to share her recipe. She took time to walk through all the steps with us and explain little details that she has learned through her baking experience.

Then she shared some sourdough starter with each of us! This bread isn't made from yeast that you buy at the store. The ingredients are only flour, water and salt. The fermentation comes from wild yeast and bacteria that are in our environment and on our skin. Pretty amazing!

When I got home from the class, I fed the starter with 150 grams of water and 150 grams of flour. She recommended several local mills for the flour. However for beginners, King Arthur flour is very consistent in its protein content.

I fed my starter once and hoped to start making bread that night. But it failed the "float test," where you put a spoon full into a cup of water. If it floats, it's ready to use. Mine wasn't ready, so I fed it a second time late that night. Because the next day was Sunday and I knew I'd be gone most of the day, I put the starter in the fridge after I fed it.

The next afternoon, I took the starter out and let it warm for a bit. I've discovered that my microwave (which is built-in above the oven) is a perfect, warm place! This time, it passed the float test!

Let the baking begin!

For a recipe, go here: The Kitchn by Emma Christensen. It's almost exactly the same as what our teacher shared in class. (I don't feel free to share her recipe here since it was part of a paid class.) I will say that our teacher uses a mixture of bread flour and all purpose flour in the baking (not the feeding). About 60% AP flour. I hope to try incorporating whole wheat flour next time I make it. I'm a wheat bread lover!

During this stage, you let the gluten build and the flour hydrate. It's called autolysing. I realized later that I didn't let my dough sit long enough before adding the salt (which slows the process). So I'll do that for longer next time.

Several of the steps involve folding the dough and letting it rest. I just did it in a bowl and covered it with plastic wrap so it wouldn't dry out. It does not double in size like when you make regular bread, so don't worry when that doesn't happen! The dough was still very wet at this point and didn't expand much at all. I feared it was dead but kept going! LOL

After all the folding, you dump it out on the counter to rest. You'll actually see the edges start to relax. Then you do a last folding from all directions that makes a seam in the bread. When you put the bread in a proofing basket, that seam stays up (which will make it be on the bottom once you put your loaf into the pan to bake).

This was my dough resting.

Here's my dough in the proofing basket. These also come with linen liners which can help absorb some of the extra moisture. I had hand washed mine (it was new and smelled like chemicals), so I couldn't use it. I ended up doing a little research online and read a recommendation to flour the basket with rice flour. I did that first. Then, like my teacher Sarah, I also coated it with cornmeal.

Here is my loaf proofing. This was like 1 am, so I put it in the refrigerator to start up again the next day.

Then next day, I took the basket out to warm up. I put it in the warm microwave for about an hour. It seemed to poof up just a little. (I still feared it was DEAD!)

Then I pre-heated the oven with my Dutch oven inside. Then I sprinkled the pan with cornmeal. Then I dumped the loaf into the hot pan. It came right out! It didn't stick to the basket, which was a huge relief.

I scored the loaf in a single deep cut lengthwise and two shallower side cuts (for a round loaf, she does a pound-sign). Then I baked with the lid on for 20 minutes. Then took the lid off and baked 20 more minutes. However, from the recipe I shared with you, it sounds like you might want to bake it longer. Mine was rather "blond" compared to photos I saw online and was a bit difficult to cut. So maybe baking longer would help with that.

Here's the finished product!

See those nice air bubbles?! My yeasties and bacteria WEREN'T DEAD!!

Everything I read said to let it cool well before cutting. Who in their right mind can resist warm bread, I ask you??!!

We had it still warm and slathered in butter. Oh, y'all, this was sooo good. It was a lot of work, but I decided it was worth it. I'll keep feeding my starter (once or twice weekly if kept in the fridge). And I hope to maybe bake monthly. If you try it, be sure to let me know how it turns out!


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