Posted on by rsung

Hope’s sourdough bread

Time: 3 days | 30min mixing | 4-8 hours rising | 40min baking
Servings: 1 loaf
Rating: 5/5

Recipe by Hope my friend, folding instructions by Brian Lagerstrom in Your First Sourdough (Sourdough Bread For Complete Beginners): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEtU4Co08yY

INGREDIENTS

  • 345g water
  • 100g starter
  • 10g salt
  • 456g flour
  • cornmeal

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Day 1 (night) | Prep starter: take starter out of the fridge and feed it (50g flour + 50g water).
  2. Day 2 (morning) | In a medium mixing bowl, measure out the water. Add in the starter and check that it is floating and fully activated. Add salt to the starter mixture and stir together until partially dissolved. Mix in flour until incorporated. 
  3. Cover and let rise for 4-8 hours, complete strength folds at the 30min and 60min mark. 
  4. Strength folds: Wet hand with water if dough is too sticky. Fold over each of the sides of the dough, fold in the corners, then grab the bottom of the dough and tuck it into itself to make a taut ball. Fold the dough in half on itself 4-6 times to help make the top surface taut.
  5. Shape loaf: Lightly flour the counter and hands. Pull out the bottom edge of the dough then fold towards the top, pull out sides 8-10″ and then fold over each other, fold the top towards bottom, and fold in the corners 4-8 times. Flour the cloth bread bowl and transfer dough in seam side up.  
  6. Let rise in the fridge overnight to 1.5 days before baking
  7. Day 3-4 | Preheat oven at 450 deg with the Dutch oven and lid inside.
  8. Sprinkle cornmeal on parchment paper and transferring the loaf onto it seam side down. Score the top. Transfer loaf into the hot Dutch oven and cover. 
  9. Bake for 40min total, remove the lid after 20min.
  10. Transfer loaf onto a wire rack and cool for a couple hours before slicing. The bottom should sound hollow when knocked. 

Thoughts
This is my friend Hope’s sourdough recipe that helped me bake my first really successful sourdough loaf that I would bring to a dinner party. I weighed out the salt and flour separately before mixing it into the water. I tried using 100g whole wheat flour in the pictured loaf. I followed the folding as illustrated in Brian’s video at Step 3 Bulk Fermentation and Step 4 Shaping. You can let the dough rise in the cloth bread bowl on the counter until doubled to bake on the same day.