This is a classic artisan sourdough bread recipe, also known as a boule. This recipe makes one loaf. We are a smaller family of 3 so one loaf is perfect for us! You can easily double this if that fits your families need better. Made with only flour, water, salt, and sourdough starter. A delicious crusty exterior and chewy interior, perfect for sandwiches, avocado toast, or just eat plain with butter.
This whole entire process of making an artisan sourdough bread loaf is so satisfying to me! Working with your hands, performing the stretch and folds, shaping the dough, it’s all so therapeutic and fun!
Why you’ll love this recipe
- Simple ingredients- that you can feel good about feeding your family
- Gut health benefits – Sourdough is long fermented so the grains are soaking for a long time breaking down phytic acid making the nutrients more available to our bodies and easier to digest.
- Easy to follow- although making a classic sourdough loaf like this takes 2 days to make the steps to make it are very simple!
Sourdough bakers timeline
| Day 1: | ||
| 8-9pm | Feed sourdough starter so it’s ready to go in the morning | |
| Day 2: | ||
| 7-10am | Start your bread. Perform stretch and folds every 30 minutes over a 2 hour period. | |
| 10-7pm | Bulk fermentation | |
| 6pm | shape dough, place in a banneton basket. Refrigerate overnight. Or if you want to bake it the same day refrigerate for at least 2 hours then bake. | |
| Day 3: | Score bread and bake |
Ingredients
All purpose flour
Filtered water
Sourdough starter – active and bubbly
salt
How to make artisan sourdough bread
Step 1: Add your water and active starter to a bowl and mix together. It should look milky.
Step 2: Add flour and mix with a dough whisk. Let dough sit for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes come back and add in 25g of water and 12g of salt. Mix in with hands, squishing the dough in between your fingers. Don’t knead just incorporate the salt into the dough. Let dough rest for 30 minutes.
Step 3: Perform 4 stretch and folds over the course of 2 hours (about every 15-30 minutes). To do a stretch and fold wet your hands and grab the dough closest to the side of the bowl and pull upwards to stretch then place down and across on the dough. Turn the bowl a quarter turn then repeat the stretch and fold until you’ve done 4-6 for that set. See photo and youtube video for full explanation of this if you need further guidance.
Step 4: After the stretch and folds allow the dough to rise (also known as bulk fermentation time) for 8 hours. Rise time depends on temperature. Can be anywhere from 6-10 hours.
Step 5: After the bulk fermentation, flour a clean surface and turn dough out onto the floured surface. Press air bubbles out of dough, flattening the dough. Then fold in the long edges of the dough into the center and starting on the short end of the dough roll up the dough into a ball. Next you will build tension in the dough by pushing and pulling it with your hands. While I’m pushing and pulling I also move the dough around in little circles.
Step 6: Flour a banneton basket lined with a tea towel or the insert they come with. Place your dough seam side up in the banneton, meaning bottom up. Use a bench scraper for this. It makes that transfer easier.
Step 7: Place the basket in a plastic grocery store bag, tie the ends of the bag together. Refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours, but I usually do overnight.
Step 8: When you’re ready to bake preheat your oven to 500° with a dutch oven with the lid on. After it’s preheated get a sheet or parchment paper ready. Plop dough onto parchment paper, dust some flour over top, using a sharp razor blade score the bread. I do a simple score of going along the side, but you can get creative with this part.
Step 9: Get the pre-heated dutch oven out of the oven, pick up the parchment paper and transfer the dough into the dutch oven. Place lid on dutch oven and bake for 25 minutes. Take off lid and reduce oven heat to 450° bake for another 20 minutes. Allow to cool fully (1-2 hours) before slicing into.
Youtube Video
Artisan sourdough bread
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Add your water and active starter to a bowl and mix together. It should look milky.368g filtered water, 125g Active sourdough starter
- Add flour and mix with a dough whisk. Let dough sit for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes come back and add in 25g of water and 12g of salt. Mix in with hands, squishing the dough in between your fingers. Don't knead just incorporate the salt into the dough. Let dough rest for 30 minutes.500g All purpose flour
- Perform 4 stretch and folds over the course of 2 hours (about every 15-30 minutes). To do a stretch and fold wet your hands and grab the dough closest to the side of the bowl and pull upwards to stretch then place down and across on the dough. Turn the bowl a quarter turn then repeat the stretch and fold until you've done 4-6 for that set. See youtube video for full explanation of this if you need further guidance.
- After the stretch and folds allow the dough to rise (also known as bulk fermentation time) for 8 hours. Rise time depends on temperature. Can be anywhere from 6-10 hours.
- After the bulk fermentation, flour a clean surface and turn dough out onto the floured surface. Press air bubbles out of dough, flattening the dough. Then fold in the long edges of the dough into the center and starting on the short end of the dough roll up the dough into a ball. Next you will build tension in the dough by pushing and pulling it with your hands. While I'm pushing and pulling I also move the dough around in little circles.
- Flour a banneton basket lined with a tea towel or the insert they come with. Place your dough seam side up in the banneton, meaning bottom up. Use a bench scraper for this. It makes that transfer easier.
- Place the basket in a plastic grocery store bag, tie the ends of the bag together. Refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours, but I usually do overnight.
- When you're ready to bake preheat your oven to 500° with a dutch oven with the lid on. After it's preheated get a sheet or parchment paper ready. Plop dough onto parchment paper, dust some flour over top, using a sharp razor blade score the bread. I do a simple score of going along the side, but you can get creative with this part.
- Get the pre-heated dutch oven out of the oven, pick up the parchment paper and transfer the dough into the dutch oven. Place lid on dutch oven and bake for 25 minutes. Take off lid and reduce oven heat to 450° bake for another 20 minutes. Allow to cool fully (1-2 hours) before slicing into.