Hi Bold Bakers, recently I made my first ever
sourdough starter. Well that’s not technically true, I’ve
made it before but this is the first time I’ve kept it alive. It’s really easy and I did a recipe video
on how you can do it too. So here’s the thing, I made this a few weeks
ago and now it’s ready to use. So I’m gonna take this and make the world’s
easiest loaf of sourdough bread. Simple technique, bare bones, I guarantee
everyone out there can make it. And joining us behind the camera this week
is my husband Kevin. Yep, I’m right here again and George is
definitely asleep. So for accuracy with sourdough I do like to
use a digital weighing scale, but I do have the cup measurements on my website. Whatever you like. So the first thing we’re gonna weigh out
is our sourdough starter. Now come here to me Kevin, I want you to see
how good this guy is looking. This is Breaddie Vedder. We called him Breaddie Vedder because we love
Pearl Jam in this house. And look how bubbly and alive this is. So we’re going to scoop this into our nice
big bowl. So once you use your starter you’re going
to have to feed him again and all of that information is on my website. So the next thing we’re going to add in
is the water, now you want blood temperature water. Now how you can tell that is you put your
finger in, and you can’t really feel your finger around the water, that means it’s
the same temperature as your blood. Yeast loves this sort of warm water to help
it grow. And then what I like to add into my bread
is a little bit of olive oil. And then all you want to do is just mix these
ingredients together. So now let’s talk about flour. I’m using a bread flour for this sourdough. So here’s the thing, that little bit extra
gluten as compared to all purpose flour gives you a better crumb, a butter texture, it’s
chewier. Definitely use bread flour for this. Now I know I’m gonna get a lot of questions,
can I use all purpose flour? Technically yes, you can use all purpose flour,
you might need a little less liquid, but for best results go with bread flour. And then a nice bit of salt, salt is really
important for the flavor of your bread. There you go, the simple ingredients you need
to make bread. And as you can see there’s no dairy in here
so it’s vegan which is great. So now I’m gonna remove the scales. So now the mixing of the dough, this is the
simplest part. This is a no-knead dough so you don’t need
a kitchen mixer to make it. So here’s what I’m going to do, I’m
going to remove my rings because i’m going to mix it by hand. You can use a wooden spoon or spatula, but
the reason I use my hand is because I can see exactly what’s going on in the dough,
if it needs more water or anything like that. It always varies because your flour is different
from my flour, things like that, so if you go in with your hands you can tell what’s
going on and you can make your adjustments early before you’ve mixed it too much. So my dough is all coming together, I have
a nice clean bowl and a big ball of dough. So here’s what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna
put this over to the side. I’m gonna bring in a little bit of olive
oil, just a drizzle. And then just coat your bowl with olive oil
and then pop back in your dough. The reason that we do this is because we’re
gonna proof our dough in this bowl. And we want to make it easy on the dough to
rise, we don’t want to stretch out the dough. So putting a little bit of oil there will
just help it glide up the bowl when it’s proofing. Ok perfect, you can tell early on when you
get your hands in there if it’s a good dough and I can tell that this is. So right now I’m gonna cover this with cling
wrap, nice and tight, just to keep the air off the dough. And then I’m going to lay over a towel. So here’s what you want to do, this is a
no knead dough remember, so you’re going to have to ferment it. So we’re going to let our dough rest for
around 12-18 hours, and over this time period the gluten will get stronger, the bubbles
will form, the flavor will develop, then we’ll be able to shape and cook off our bread. So because this takes a long time, I prepared
one yesterday so it’d be ready in time for this. Gemma question for you: what is Sourdough? So that’s a good question. Sourdough is bread that’s leavened with
wild yeast found in the atmosphere, and that’s what your starter is. It is wild yeast that you fermented over time,
it’s just flour and water. You feed it and it creates this yeast, so
for your bread there’s no need for commercial yeast you’ve actually made your own. So it’s really fantastic, it adds better
flavor, texture. Sourdough is just the superior bread, when
you make a loaf, there’s just something really rewarding about it. So this has been fermenting for over 18 hours
roughly. If you don’t use this after at least 24
hours pop it into the fridge and you can use it for up to three days. But definitely put it into the fridge after
24 hours. So now I want you to see this, this is the
beauty of sourdough bread. Look at this, do you see that Kevin? Do you see all those lovely bubbles? All the gasses? I can smell it too. This is what time yields us, these lovely,
big, pockets of air. And this is why we want to use a bread flour
because bread flour holds those much better, it’s stronger. So here’s a question I get a lot about bread
dough, maybe somebody left it for 24 hours it starts to get a smell, they say to me,
can I use this it smells kind of bad. But that’s the thing, that’s not a bad
smell, that’s a good smell. That smell is booze, fermentation, flavor. That’s exactly what your dough should smell
like. So you can still use it, there’s nothing
wrong with it, it’s great. So now our dough is ready to be turned out
of the bowl. Do you see that? Do you see those gluten strands? This is beautiful. So often when you turn a bread dough out of
a bowl I say knock out the air, but for this one we’re not going to. We are kind of but differently, I’ll show
you. We’re just gonna fold the dough onto itself. The reason I do this is to strengthen the
dough. You’ll see this method a lot in sourdough
making, people talking about folding their dough. And it’s just to make it that little bit
stronger. And now what I want to do is form it into
a ball and you can do that by pushing it into your table and turning it into a ball. Now, the majority of time I say to use a floured
surface, but when it comes to shaping bread I actually don’t put flour on my surface. It’s so much easier to shape it without
flour because it kind of gives it that traction. So now let’s talk proofing. So you can get one of those fancy proofing
baskets online if you want, they’re like $50. Here I have a nice little bread basket that
I found in the dollar store. You can also use any kind of a bowl. And what I’m going to do is line this with
a nice clean napkin. And I’m generously gonna flour this up the
sides and on the bottom, be generous with this because it not only stops your dough
from sticking but it’ll give it a lovely finish at the end. There we go. So pick up your loaf, put the seam side facing
upwards and the smooth side facing down, and lay it into your basket, just like that. Lovely. Then fold over the napkin so all the bread
is sealed, we don’t want any air to get in at the bread because it will form a skin. So now let’s talk proofing, this does take
a bit of time because it’s a big bread. So roughly, depending on how warm your kitchen
is, it’ll take between an hour and forty five minutes to two and a half hours. Over this time you want it to get nice and
big, light, fluffy, airy, and then it’s going to be perfect to be baked off. Ok so while this is proofing Kevin and I are
going to get a cup of tea. So it’s been a full two hours so let me
show you what your bread should look like proofed. So this is well risen, and you’re talking
about one and a half to two times the size. I can feel that the dough is not as cold as
it was so that’s great. And when you touch it, it’s light under
your fingers and not as dense. And another way to tell if it’s properly
proofed is give it a little bit of a push, and if the dough rises back slowly that means
it’s ready to go into the oven. If it bounces back really fast then it needs
more time to proof. So this is ready to go. Ok now let’s talk baking, this is really
important so I don’t want you to skip over this part. There’s a few methods you can do, so I’m
gonna show you three. Number one is baking off your dough in a dutch
oven, now you’ve probably seen this online. They make an amazing loaf of bread, what happens
is that steam is created once you put on that lid, it steams the bread and when you take
it off it continues to cook. And the lovely thick walls of the dutch oven
really retain that heat. Our second method is another way to introduce
steam. What you do is you put a cake pan with some
boiling water in it, and when you add your bread, the bread bakes it creates steam and
it’ll give you a lovely shiny crust. So our third option is a fantastic one and
I do this all the time, it’s almost as good as using a dutch oven. In my oven I have a cast iron tray, use a
thick baking tray if you have on. So here I have a baking tray and carefully
turn out your dough, this is a lovely shape but go in with your hands and make it a tighter
ball. Just make sure it’s nice and round. So using a sharp knife or a blade I’m going
to score the top of the bread. So I’m gonna do a score right down the middle,
you can do any kind of design you like. Gemma why do you score your bread? So that’s a good question, you might think
it’s just for looks but actually it’s to let out steam while it’s baking. If you don’t score your bread it can kind
of burst or crack on one side so you want to make sure you have some kind of marking
on top to let that out. Over my bread dough I am going to put a metal
bowl. Now, you need a metal bowl because it’s
going to go into the oven. Look at your kitchen mixer because that’s
exactly what this bowl is. So just put over your metal bowl and be careful
not to touch the dough, just have it around it. This is perfect, this is our baking vessel. So now baking bread, bread loves a really
hot oven, so when you’re preheating your oven preheat it to 450° F or 225° C, but
then when you actually put in your bread, turn it down to 400°F or 200°C. Ok so after
30 minutes you remove the bowl, you don’t want it to steam the whole amount of time,
just for 30 mintues. So then you bake it uncovered for another
30 minutes in that nice hot dry oven. Ta-da, look at this great loaf of bread. Now don’t go anywhere because I want to
show you a few things. You see here how that crust is nice and shiny? That is because we steamed the bread, this
step is really important because it gives you a nice shiny, chewy crust so you don’t
wanna forget that. If you look down here at the bottom of the
bread, it kind of goes up like this. That’s called oven spring and we got this
because we put it on a nice heated tray, putting it on cast iron did it a world of good. And as you can see here our nice big score
made our bread look nice and beautiful, so really get in there with your knife and do
a nice deep score. This looks like a legit loaf of artisanal
sourdough bread, like it’s amazing. You can do this to at home. So now here’s the tell of a great sourdough,
pick it up and give it a nice squeeze, you hear that? A lovely thick crust and that’s what that
dry heat does once you take off the bowl it gives you that lovely crust. It’s amazing. So now let’s have a look at the inside because
I want to show you all that time waiting, what it creates. So there you go, straight away we can see
all of our hard working paying off, you see those bubbles in the crumb? That is from the fermenting process, from
letting it sit overtime and the gasses building up in the gluten. One thing I love about sourdough is that each
loaf is unique, so they’ll taste similar and they’ll all have a similar texture but
they’re all going to be totally different and that’s what’s beautiful about them. Oh my gosh, the longer you keep the starter,
the better the flavor. So in a few months time, your sourdough will
be even more developed. It’s beautiful, it’s sour, it’s salty,
it has amazing flavor and the texture is fantastic. And like any great sourdough this has a lovely
thick crust, this is absolutely amazing. So this is just the beginning of our sourdough
journey, I have lots more to come. Also make sure you check out the rest of my
bread videos and I’ll see you back real soon.
