I hear often: “Too difficult”… “It takes too much time”… Take it easy and relax!
I’m definitely not an expert, and will not teach you the “best way” but well the easiest way to make sourdough 😉
You know, that is my motto: go eco without extra work!
How much time do I need per week?
- 5 min to “feed” the starter the night (or eventually the early morning) before you bake
- 15-20 min in the morning to make the dough (and do the dishes)
- baking in the oven: between 1h and 1h20 in the late afternoon
- BAKE BIG BREAD AND FREEZE IT. I bake 2 or 3 huge bread (2000 wheat) every 1,5 week for us 4 all 3 the same day). I cut them in 4 pieces and freeze them. In the evening, we take out of the freezer the quantity which we need for the next day.
Ingredients (for a ~800gr bread):
- 100gr sourdough
- 270gr water (lukewarm)
- 6gr salt
- 500gr flour (see comments)
- Seeds or herbs if you want
So each bread I bake is 4x the above quantities.
Preparation:
- Mix all ingredients
- Leave it to rest until you see it has raised (in winter i put it in the oven; which i turn on 40°C for few minutes). Lay a wet clothes on top of it so it doesn’t dry
- Put it in the mold and bake it for about 1h (depending on your oven en how big your bread is). If i use 1500gr flour, I bake the bread for 1h; if I use 2000gr or more, I bake it for 1h15.
See here below the “Standard Operating Procedure” (sorry, I’ve been earlier a scientist, I love “SOP’s”).
What is sourdough actually? It is wild yeast and bacteria that are used since centuries to make bread (alternative to fresh yeast). Nowadays, you don’t have to leave your water-flour mixture to ferment each time you want to make bread. You can buy (or receive) a small quantity of the living mixture (called starter); and the only thing you need to do is to keep it alive.
Let me give you additional tips/comments:
- You need to keep enough starter for baking your next bread!!! Very little (less than 50gr is enough; feed it and put it in the fridge until next time)
- I’m baking in a “Staub Cocotte”. Quite expensive pot (but unbreakable!), but you can easily find it second hand. Cake mold should work too.
- Which flour? From what I read, FEEDING your sourdough NEEDS GLUTEN! Wheat is perfect (flour or wholemeal flour (NL: meel; FR: farine complète). You can also use rye (NL: Rogge; FR: Seigle), it works even better. For the moment I use a mix of both.
- GLUTEN FREE? It is not possible to bake a sourdough bread gluten free. I’ve also tried it… and it failed! You might find some in shops, but “sourdough” is not a protected name. If you add some sourdough (even a little bit) or some taste of it, you can call you bread sourdough…
- CAVE: 270 ml water is for wheat flour. If you use other flour you might to adapt it (rogge require less water; you’ll fast find out which is the best quantity for the flour you use).
Eco With Kids 