How to Bake Sourdough Bread Easily at Home

The Best Part About This Sourdough Tutorial?

No special tools required, just budget friendly, healthy bread. We had sourdough with honey butter for breakfast, we eat it for snack, and sometimes I eat it for dessert. Bread 3 or more times a day, you say? Oh yes, and unapologetically enjoying every fluffy buttery bite. I am here to tell you that reading about sourdough used to intimidate me, what was a stretch and fold? BF/bulk ferment? 19 steps eh? Who has time for all of that dough-sitting! Apparently I did, it was worth it to me to figure it out, and I have! In a short matter of time I was baking excellent loaves.

What is Sourdough Bread?

Sourdough is the fermentation that happens when wild yeast from your kitchen feed on flour and water and create little gases basically to make the starter active and help the bread rise. You can make your own sourdough starter by mixing equal parts flour and water by weight – a kitchen scale is really really helpful for this. OR you can make a really great sourdough starter the lazy girl way and mix 1/4 cup of flour with about 3 Tbs. of water to get a thick pancake batter like consistency on day 1. Feed it morning and night by simply discarding half of that mixture and adding 1/4 cup of flour and 3 Tbs. of water. In 7-10 days your starter should smell sour like buttermilk or sour cream and is ready to use when it is bubble, however, I really really truly highly recommend you purchase a starter that has been maintained for at least a year or more because this starter has an established ecosystem that will make really a really strong structure for raising your sourdough bread and just make it SO much easier to make it. I know this from experience and this is exactly how I started a small home bakery selling sourdough bread and other goods. It is fun to start and keep your own starter, some people keep different ones. I went through several before I finally got a good system going! Keep reading to find out how I learned to bake sourdough SO quick, it didn’t take me tons of reading and years of practice, just using the right tips to improve my process.

A Successful Loaf, So Delicious!

My husband loves them, our neighbors enjoy them, my friends have complimented my loaves, and it did not take me hours and hours to figure it out. 

My Best Sourdough Baking Tip

Here’s the tip that surprised me most: The starter bubbles indicate how your bread will look inside. It seems obvious now that I know it but I never thought of it before hearing that from an experienced sourdough baker. I have the full run down of tips that helped me succeed, and I’m still learning, but followed in a sequential order, they helped me start baking delicious sourdough loaves almost effortlessly, there are no tricks or gimmicks here, just tried and true steps and another secret is…. you have to know what signs to watch for in your dough. You can develop an intuition that takes you confidently through the basic steps without depending on a timer or exact measurements.

How to Make Sourdough Bread Easily at Home

1. Starter
2. Autolyse
3. Mixing
4. Stretch and Folds
5. Bulk Ferment
6. Preshaping
7. Shaping
8. Cold Proof
9. Baking
10. Storage Tips

The Starter: Make sure your starter is very active, the way the holes in the start look are about the same size the holes in your bread are going to be, so make sure that little yeast is bubbly and happy. My easy to follow starter maintenance and sourdough baking guide shows you how to bake bread without the special tools and using just all purpose flour, I like to use organic, you can use the Great Value brand if you want, it will still turn out great, though I do like to keep fresh milled and organic flours on hand, it’s really up to your preference and budget needs. The guide teaches you how to make sourdough without any special tools: no scale, no special whisks, no special proofing baskets, and still get a great loaf of bread for a very very low cost.

Next the autolyse is really important, I mix my flour and water until smoooooth, and give it at least 30 minutes. This kick starts the gluten development that you need for a lovely tall and soft loaf. But wait… there’s more! LOL ok ok just kidding, when you move onto adding the active starter and salt, you can use…

Use a dough whisk, or your hands, and dimple the starter and salt in, making sure to get it good and incorporated until the dough is smooth. Then we stretch and fold.

I do four rounds of stretch and folds and here is the most surprising tip I learned when I started… you want that dough to be less and less sticky with each stretch and fold and I mean by the 2nd stretch and fold, if your dough is still puddling in the container, you may want to try some slap and folds! Those are so fun, I do like 8 to 10 if needed but my recipe usually works so well I don’t have to do this.

Once those S&F’s (stretch and folds for my newbie friends) are done, it’s time to let that dough bulk ferment, give those babies some time to eat! Break down that gluten, produce their lovely little CO2 gas to help the dough get ready to rise, and produce that wonderful tangy flavor (which goes great with homemade chili if I do say so myself). This will take 4-6 hours depending on how warm your kitchen is!

Watch my Youtube Tutorial Here!

After the BF (bulk ferment) it’s time to pre-shape, this helps that gluten development that is all important to a proud, tall loaf of bread. We pre-shape by simply cupping our hand around the dough and gently tucking it under then turning it a bit and tucking the dough all the way around just to create some tension on the surface, take care not to tear the dough! Let it rest 20 minutes.

Then preshape into a boule (a round) much like you did the pre-shaping movement. Or you can shape into a batard which I will show in my video but it takes a bit more practice! Prepare your proofing bowl or banneton ahead of time is ideal, but I have used 8 cup rectangle food storage containers, bread pans, and plastic basket bannetons from Amazon lined with paper towels sprinkled with all purpose flour, they work fine! The ideal is a banneton basket lined and dusted with rice flour I am sure there is a good reason for that. You can find plastic basket bannetons in 12 packs for $24 on Amazon, or purchase a nice sourdough kit with the bowl covers I think those are really nice. But once your dough is shaped place it seam side up in the proofing basket, cover it with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge to cold proof 12 hours or overnight.

When you’re ready to bake preheat your baking pans and bread pan (For the ice) in the oven to 450°F. Keep your dough in the fridge until it’s preheated, it’s important to place cold dough in the oven to get a nice tall loaf.

Baking the Sourdough Loaf

Once your oven is preheated, take those preheated pans out, turn your dough gently onto the pans and remove the paper towel or basket liner if needed. Using the sharpest knife you have (a serrated bread knife works well) or even an X-acto knife if you have one, seriously they work well, and make a nice firm score from one end of your dough to the other. Place it in the oven, and put about a cup of ice in that extra pan and close the oven quickly and bake for 1 hour. Let it cool for an hour before slicing, enjoy!

Storing your Sourdough Bread

The bread crust will soften the second day. If you’re not planning to eat it the same day or the next day, slice your sourdough bread, place it in an airtight gallon freezer storage bag or container, and place it in the freezer up to 3 months. You can re-crisp sliced bread or whole loaves in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes.