My Classic Sourdough Boule

I know we all hate the long paragraphs these recipe blogs always have so i’ll keep it short! Bread making came to me at a time when everything else felt very stressful and overwhelming. I couldn’t wait until my kids would go to bed so I could start making a new loaf. Sourdough is a labor of love and putting so much time and effort into something that would feed my family, friends and customers gave me a sense of purpose (outside of motherhood) that I really needed at the time. This was the first recipe I perfected and my favorite to make, even if it’s kind of basic and boring! I hope you find this easy and as enjoyable as I found it to make! If you’re a visual learner, visit the end of the page for a link to my youtube channel where I personally show you how to make this bread.

Ingredients:

100g Sourdough Starter

360g Water

540g Bread Flour

12g Salt

Recipe:

Day 1 -

Feed your starter around 12pm

Around 8pm make sure your starter is active and bubbly. If it is, you’re ready to start. If it’s not, discard, feed again and try again in the morning! Now let’s make some bread!

Take your bowl and place it on a scale. We measure by grams over here, never by measuring cups.

I like to add my water first, then my starter next. I mix the two quickly to make sure the starter is evenly dispersed through the water. Next I add the flour and the salt last.

You can use your hands to mix or a stand mixer, just make sure you have a dough hook attachment if you do use a stand mixer. I will say, this is a messy process if you do use your hands but there is something very sacred about handmade foods!

Combine your ingredients until they make a shaggy dough. This doesn’t have to be perfect, we will be doing several stretch and folds before the overnight fermentation! Once your first mix is done, place a towel over your bowl and let the dough sit for 30 minutes.

After the 30 minutes is up, we are going to do our first stretch and fold! This builds gluten in the bread and thats what we want. Flour your surface and place your dough on top. The next step is just how it sounds… stretch, then fold. Pull a side of your dough out, then fold it back in on itself. Keep doing this until it gets harder to stretch the bread. If you need a visual for this step, head over to our youtube channel! Let your dough sit with a towel covering the bowl for another 30 minutes.

You want to do another 2 or 3 stretch and folds (depending on how late you want to be up) but don’t be scared to be perfect, this bread is very forgiving and will turn out fine no matter how many you do.

Let your bowl sit covered at room temp for the next 10-12 hours. Some place it in their oven or microwave, I just let mine sit on my kitchen counter.

Day 2 -

We’re half way through the process! You should see some rise in your dough by this point. If you don’t, don’t be discouraged, your starter made need more time to mature and become active.

Now begins the shaping process! Grab your proofing basket! I got mine on amazon here.

For this step you want to flour your surface again, then take your dough and flatten it onto your surface.

Fold each side into the middle until you’ve made a ball. Then you want to flip the dough over so the smooth, flat side is now facing up and the folded side is facing down.

Now we want to build tension across the top of the loaf to hold in all the bubbles that form when baking! To do this, you want to slide the dough towards you while simultaneously pulling the other side under. You should see the top of the bread stretching. You want to get the top of the dough as smooth and as tight as possible. If you need a visual, my instructional video here.

You want to repeat this exact process 2 or 3 times again with 30 minutes of resting in between (I told you this was a labor of love)

Once you achieve your desired shape, grab your proofing bowl and place a towel inside of it. Sprinkle a liberal amount of flour on the towel so your dough doesn’t stick to it. Place your dough pretty side down and folded side up.

Place your bowl into the fridge for a minimum of 5 hours and a maximum of 72 hours. The longer you let your dough sit, the more fermented and sour it will be.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven to 450 degrees with your dutch oven inside to preheat as well. A hot dutch oven will help get the maximum rise out of your bread!

Once your oven is preheated, you want to score your dough, you can make that as basic or intricate as you want!

Then place your boule in your dutch oven, put the lid on top and bake for 20 minutes.

Once those 20 minutes are up, remove the lid and leave in for another 10 minutes to get golden brown.

Let us know how your loaf of bread turned out! If you need starter, you can grab a pack from the shop