- If you've been dying
to make a sourdough bread but aren't quite sure where to start or are super confused from
all the videos online, I'm gonna show you a foolproof
way to make an amazing, delicious sourdough
bread every single time. Working with sourdough
breads is not for the novice. It does take a little bit of experience getting used to everything,
but I think with this recipe, you can make it awesome
on the very first try. And let me say this, most
bread recipes use bread flour. But me? I'm out, it's kinda hard to get right now, so I've been using all purpose flour and I think I figured out
how to make the most amazing sourdough bread recipe
with all purpose flour. And my guess is that's what
you've got at home too, so let's start off by feeding our starter. Sound good? Let's bake. Go ahead and pull your starter right out and place it on the countertop. Let's take the lid off. You wanna make sure this thing is active. It will only make your bread
rise better and taste better, so be sure it's at this step
before you move forward. Yep, I'm stopping right out of the gate because I do have a
sourdough starter recipe, and let say this about that video. I was making a ton of bread that week, so I needed a lot of sourdough starter. My recommendation is to
follow that recipe but except, cut it into quarters or even sixths. It will still be perfect. So now what we need to do is measure out some of our starter. What I like to do is add about half of it to a clean container. I'm using a plastic container. If you have a mason jar,
whatever you use, great. Make sure it does have a lid. The other half of the starter, you can freeze and use for a later date. Now what I'm gonna do is measure out 55 grams of all purpose flour. You have to use all purpose
flour when feeding a starter, you cannot use bread flour. Please remember that. Once you've measured that out, now I've got some whole
wheat flour, 20 grams, that I'm going to add right in there. This is going to help
bring some awesome flavors to our bread, and of course our starter. And now I'm going to measuring out 75 grams of warm bottled water. Do not use tap water, the chlorine in there
will kill your starter. At a temperature in between
30 and 33 degrees Celsius or 87 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit. Simply remove the container off the scale so you don't damage it and vigorously mix this together using a spoon. You wanna make sure there is
visibly no dry flour anywhere. Once it's to this consistency, I like to scrape down the sides because I want to get a
good visual of how much this starter is activated
before I use it in my bread. So to do this, I draw a
little line with a marker or you can absolutely just
put a rubber band over top and put it right at to the
place where your starter is and you can see on the side. Now gently, and I mean very gently, add the top to your container. Do not press it down. And to get this thing activated, because I'm guessing most of
you don't have a proofing oven, what I like to do is
put it right in the oven with the oven light on and door cracked, because it makes a perfect
proofing temperature to help activate your starter a little bit quicker than normal. I'm sure you're already thinking like, "Gosh, four hours already out of the gate? "We're not even starting
to make bread yet?" You make sourdough today
so you can eat it tomorrow, that's how it works. After a few hours, about
two and a half to three, you'll notice that your sourdough starter is starting to peak. It'll be two and a half to
three times the size that it was when we first put it in. And then once it peaks,
it will start to decline. You can see that little lip
on the edge start to go down. This means our starter's hungry and this is absolutely perfect
time to begin our autolyse. During the process of autolyse, that's when you turn complex
carbohydrates in the flour into complex sugars for that yeast in the starter to feed upon. It's a beautiful, beautiful process. A lot of autolyses out
there, I've seen on videos, they wanted you to do it
for two and three hours. We're gonna do it for 30 minutes. So what we're gonna do is measure out 350 grams of all purpose flour. Remember I am doing an all
purpose sourdough bread recipe. Once it is in there,
I'm next going to hit it with 50 grams of whole wheat flour. This is gonna add some
amazing flavors there. And then, 275 grams of warm bottled water in between 30 and 33 degrees Celsius or 87 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit. And remove it from the
scale so you don't ruin it. And then, using your
hands, roll up your sleeve, mix everything together. This should only take a couple of minutes and there should be no visible flour. It's going to be sticky. And I do like using hands because I believe you should feel what every step of the
process should feel like. So if you do wanna use bread
flour, you have to figure a five to 10% hydration
increase in this recipe. So for instance, I'm
using 275 grams of water because I have all purpose flour, which takes less hydration. It can't handle all that water. If you're using bread
flour in this recipe, you need to add 27 and
a half grams into this so that your hydration
ratio will be perfect when making bread. Now, go ahead and go over to your sink and what I like to do is
saturate a kitchen towel. This is gonna help provide
some moisture in that dry oven. Place it right over top,
head over to your oven with the oven light on,
with your starter in there. Place it right next to it. Be sure to leave it
cracked, we don't want it to get too hot in there, and we're gonna let it
autolyse for 30 minutes. Then go ahead and come back out. We're putting it right on the scale, and now I'm going to pull out my starter. You can see that it's very
active, bubbles are going down. This thing is a beauty. I'm going to measure out
75 grams of the starter, and just as an FYI, it should be 10 to 12% of your total bread recipe. Once all of your starter is in there, I like to sort of spread
it around over the top, just because I feel like
it's going to be easier to incorporate. And then I sort of press everything down. It's just my way of getting
things into the autolysed dough. And then at this point, I start to pick up and fold a little bit, press down and push in with
the backside of my fingers. Get used to doing this
method, this process, because this is pretty
much the same thing I do when incorporating my
salt and doing my folds. I pull a little bit, I
press down and forward with the backside of my fingers. Like I said, get comfortable doing this because you're gonna do it a lot. The dough will be sticky, do
not let this freak you out. This is exactly how it should be. And at this point, what I'm gonna do is add that towel right on there. It's going back in that
oven with the light on and the door cracked for 30 more minutes. But this is great timing because
I can measure out my salt. I'm using sea salt. Most folks use fine ground
salt, that's fine as well. You should measure out 14 grams or 2% of the total bread recipe. Now evenly sprinkle it on over the top. If there's clumps of salt, no big deal. And then go ahead and wet your hands with some of the leftover bottled water and press down into the dough. Get that salt completely incorporated. And then again, I'm going right back to that sort of folding
motion where I pull up, be sure not to tear the dough, and then I press in on the bottom and up with the backside of my fingers. Once it is combined, this
will take about 90 seconds, just like when adding in your starter and the same for all of the folds. Once it's to this consistency, we are going to add the towel on top and it is going back in the oven with the door cracked and the light on. Now here is what your
fold should look like. We are gonna let this sit for one hour, we're gonna come back and fold it, and then every hour after that, we do the same thing for four total hours. So we have four folds left. Now before we get into these
folds, let me tell you this. Yes, there are still things to do, and it's funny, when you look at it, sourdough bread is probably
15 minutes of work, but it takes 24 hours to
make because there's so much sitting and proofing and resting time. But I'm telling you right now,
these steps are way simpler than anything you're gonna find online. Some of those recipes have you doing eight and 10 folds for eight hour. We simplified it. Four folds in four hours. Here's how you do it. Just so I can show you
guys what I mean by a fold, go ahead and pull your bread out. You should see that it's starting to get some little bubbles on
top, this looks excellent. Now grab the dough with your
hands, do not use your fingers, do not tear the dough either. Pull up and fold over. You'll get to a point where you really can't pull up too much. What you're doing here is
trying to strengthen the dough, strengthen the gluten
so that it holds shape and it's not such a slack dough anymore. Using that exact same process that I did with the sourdough starter and the salt, pull up, fold over and push in with the backside of your fingers. This looks excellent. We are going back in the oven with the door cracked and the light on. We have three folds left. And then I just wanna
show you that last fold. So doing the same exact
process, you pull up, fold over. The dough will become easier to work with the more folds that you do. Now the difference is,
this is our last fold, and what we do is cover it with the towel but instead we put it back in the oven with the door cracked and the light on for only 30 minutes this time. So before we do our sort of final fold and making it nice and
taut and wrapping it up and letting it sit overnight,
I wanna encourage you to get a bench knife. Now if you're serious about baking, you will absolutely love this
thing, but let me say this. If you're only gonna do
this one or two times, when I was getting this
recipe right at home, I was seriously just using a metal spatula to make it nice and taut. If you got that, it'll work for now. Here's how you do it. Go ahead and pull your dough back out. It looks fantastic. We are gonna transfer
right onto the countertop. It may get a little sticky
out of the side of the bowl, don't worry, it still looks great. Then what I do is dip my hand
into the all purpose flour and gently brush the top. We just need a little bit here, and now using that bench knife,
we want to make the bread very taut, very tight on top. So you do this sort of
process where you come in and push in and slide over and up. This is gonna take a
little practice, you guys. You're probably not gonna do
it perfect on the first time but the more that you do practice it, the more it will be easier to do. So once it's nice and
tight and taut on top, just like this, this
seriously looks awesome. This is probably my favorite
part of the bread process, I don't know why. Go over to a banneton and we're gonna sprinkle in some flour. If you don't have one of these, use a bowl with a kitchen towel pressed in there. Now for our final fold shape. I flip over the dough and I spread it out as best that I can. Do not pull the dough so it
breaks, just very very gently spread it out into a little
rectangle just like this. Now, take the left side of the dough because we wanna fold it over
about three quarters over. This is perfect, looks great. Now take the other side and
fold it over that folded wrap. Excellent. We're gonna let it sit here for a second, and then starting from the
bottom and working forward, you want to pull it a little
bit and roll it forward. Make sure it is nice and tight, and at this point, go ahead
and grab your bench knife because again, we wanna
make sure it's nice and taut and holds its shape. Pull it up, put it crease side up right into your flour banetton. And then using your
fingers, what I like to do is sort of pinch off any of those seams. This will help hold in
a little bit more air, make sure it rises up to the top and it's just a little bit prettier. Once it is to this consistency, we need to place it in the fridge. You can wrap it in a towel,
put plastic wrap on it or Hefty makes these
awesome two gallon bags, you can use that, they're fantastic. Going over to the fridge,
place it in there overnight or in between 12 and 16
hours, but just in case, I wanna note, you can all the way up to 24 hours before baking. Finally, it's time to start baking. You've waited super patiently,
can't say thank you enough. Let's talk a little bit about the pot that we're gonna cook it in. I'm gonna be using the Challenger Pot, just because it's meant for baking bread. What you really need is a cast iron Dutch oven pot with a lid. It doesn't matter if it's a Challenger, a Le Creuset, a Staub, a Lodge. Whatever you've got, please use it. Cast iron is always best for baking bread because it holds heat really well, and the lid will help seal in
the moisture from the bread, making it tender, moist
and will help give it a perfectly outer brown
crust to this bread. And I'll stop and say this, if
you don't have a Dutch oven, you can also use a pizza stone or you can use a super hot
pre-heated cookie sheet tray with parchment on it. Or if you have a pot with a
lid that can handle high heat because this thing is going
in the oven at 500 degrees, make sure it can handle it. Here's what we do to pre-heat that pot. So place your pot right
into an oven on 500 degrees. Now you wanna let it
sit for 30 total minutes because we need that
pot to be extremely hot before we place our bread in it. While that pot is pre-heating in the oven, I wanna talk for a second about scoring. Now I of course have
a bread scoring knife. You can just use a razor
blade or if you actually have a really sharp paring or tourne knife, that will work excellent as well. When I was testing this recipe at home, I was actually using a
very sharp French knife and it actually worked as well. So now to practice the
technique of scoring. Go ahead and pick up your
razor blade, go over 90 degrees then come back 45 degrees and maybe tilt in a little bit more. And then you do this sort
of half moon, round motion all the way around, just like this. I want you to get practice, because this is gonna move extremely fast. Are you ready? Let's go. Bring that extremely hot pot out, be sure to use some towels. We're gonna take the top off. We're gonna generously sprinkle cornmeal right onto the pot. It's gonna help so that it
doesn't stick to the bread. Now immediately remove the
bread from the plastic bag. I'm gonna add a little
bit more cornmeal on here, just to be sure this
thing is not sticking. Now transfer your bread with the banetton right over to the pot. Place it down and then
let's begin that score. Come in at a 45 degree angle,
a little bit less like I said and do this sort of half moon motion. The dough is sticky, but you
need to move extremely quick because this bread needs to go in the oven or it's gonna fall. Immediately put the pot on, we're going in the oven on 500 degrees. Be sure to close the door
this time, and it's gonna take in between 20 and 22 minutes. At this time, what we
need to do to make sure this bread browns up beautifully
is take that lid off. Boom, see that little ear sticking out? That is very coveted
and perfect, my friends. And now we're gonna close the door. We're gonna cook it on 500
degrees for another 15 minutes. Take it out and dang,
does this look excellent. That browning to the bread and the ear is going to ensure that this
is so extremely flavorful. This is the only way to do it. Let it sit for 30 to 45 minutes. And Comeys, it's like
I say every single week on all of these videos. Once you start mastering these fundamental cooking techniques like making sourdough, you can put it in so
many different things. Pancakes, biscuits, English muffins, there are a million things
you can use with it. Or cooking in a Dutch oven
pot, because when you do that, the moisture from the bread releases, giving you that beautiful crust, making that bread tender and moist. You start putting these
things into practice and your food, day by day,
will get better and better. Better than the restaurants,
better than the stores. I always say, homemade food from scratch tastes so much better. You guys can do this. Now it's time to plate up in slow-mo. The waiting game is hard, my friends, 'cause it looks and smells amazing, but use a serrated knife. Do not use a chef knife or
French knife when cutting into it or you will smash the bread. And then for that coveted Instagram shot, don't cut through the
bottom part of the bread because you can actually fold it in and it will stay together. Like I said, that's
more of that Instagram, Facebook beauty shot. You can see all of these
excellent air pockets in here. This is what bread should look like. It's delicious, it smells
amazing, it looks amazing and golly, check out this beauty. (light dance music) I can't say it enough,
this bread is so good. It's great just eating it by itself, but at home, we've been
putting salted butter and homemade jam on it and oh my gosh, it's the best bread ever. Be sure to like this video,
subscribe to my channel. Check out this video, it
is super good you guys and I'll see you on there. (dance music)
