Sourdough 101: Part 2 of 2 (Bread)

Last week, I shared with you the beginning of my sourdough journey. In that post, I talked about the basics of sourdough and how to make or get a sourdough starter. Today I am going to give you the recipe I have been using for the sourdough bread I have been making. It’s been a couple weeks now since I have been experimenting, and I really love it. I am finding out I have so much more to learn about sourdough and all the amazing things you can do with it, and how healthy it is for you. I promise to keep sharing as I go. The good news, is that I have an expert on this stuff as my neighbor and she is teaching me a lot.

I’ll start by giving you the recipe. Then I’ll do a little picture sequence to show you the steps. Hopefully this works for you!

Sourdough Artisan Bread:

Ingredients:
3 Cups Water
1 1/2 Tbs. Salt
1 1/2 Cup Starter
About 6 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour (ground in your wheat grinder)

Instructions:
Mix ingredients together, until the dough forms a ball. You will want it to be sticky.
Put ball of dough in a bowl with lid lightly covering for 12-24 hours
Pull half of the dough out of the bowl, place on pizza stone
Sprinkle with Sesame, Sunflower seeds and Flax (optional)

Bake on pizza stone at 400 for 40-45 min

	Gather all your ingredients and put the water, salt and starter in first. Then add the flour little by little so you can get the right consistency. You’ll want to mix and scrape the dough off the sides of the bowl as you add the flour.
	The consistency you are going to want is rather sticky. If you’re used to making yeast breads, I would say it’s quite a bit stickier than a yeast bread. You’ll want it to have enough flour that the dough can sit in somewhat of a ball, but it doesn’t have to HOLD the ball shape for long. Mix it in a bowl that you can cover. Once it is done mixing, cover for 12-24 hours in your fridge before baking.
	Once you are done with your dough, and its in the fridge, make sure you feed your starter so you can use it again. Mix even amounts wheat flour and water. Leave it out until it’s bubbled and grown about double in size, then keep it in your fridge with a lid on it.
	When baking your bread, you will want to bake it long enough. I made the mistake of not really believing it needed 45 minutes and there was a doughy ball in the middle of it. This recipe makes 2 fair sized loaves. My friend made the mistake of making one loaf out of the whole thing and let’s just say her doughy ball was BIGGER than mine.

So there you have it. Please make sure you give yourself a few tries with this. I felt really nervous the whole time and I had a friend holding my hand the whole way. The worst thing that could happen is it could be a big flop. I’m really proud of myself for getting the hang of this sourdough stuff. It’s an incredible tool for emergency preparedness since the starter is just wheat flour and water, and the bread is wheat flour, water, and salt. Talk about living on few ingredients and the bread is GOOD! I’ve also been making pizza and pancakes with my starter… and I must admit… it sits better in my stomach than regular yeast breads. There are reasons for it I guess. More on that later!