There’s something so soothing about bread making. Got successful sourdough bread after lots of practice.

In this post, I’ll tell you about making sourdough bread but before that, you’ll need to make the starter for the bread making. Check out the detailed post for Sourdough Starter and make your own starter! It’s not at all difficult. Just patience is all you need!

I’ve made a video for the process of kneading the dough to make it a little easier to understand.

Let’s get started!

All You Need:

1. Whole Wheat Flour (Atta)- 150 grams
2. All-Purpose Flour- 350 grams
3. Warm Water- 390 grams
4. Sourdough Starter- 100 grams
5. Salt- 1 ½ tsp
6. Oregano/ Italian Seasoning- 2 tsp (Optional)
7. Sesame Seeds- 1 tsp (Optional)
8. Sun-Dried Tomatoes- ¼ cup (Optional)
9. A dutch oven or 2 same size cake pans (preferably 8″) or any other oven safe utensil with a lid.

A Few Tips:

• I will highly recommend buying a food scale for this recipe. It makes it more precise.
• Make sure the water is warm and not hot. To know that, either use a thermometer which should read around 95° F. Or, dip your finger and it shouldn’t feel to hot, just warm.
• The last 3 ingredients are optional. I used them to make my sun-dried tomatoes sourdough bread.
• This process can take anywhere between 7 days to 14 days depending on the temperature of your house.
• You can use 380 grams of water as well.
• The dough will be sticky for sure but don’t worry. That’s how it is supposed to be.
• You can use a cast iron to bake your bread or any other utensil. Just make sure you can cover it with something which is oven safe.

Method:

• Take a big glass bowl and place it on a the scale. Tare it to zero.
• Add the starter and the warm water. Using a spatula, mix it until it dissolves in the water.
• Add whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour. Mix it using your hands. There should not be any dry flour left.
• Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and place it in a warm spot for 60- 75 minutes.
• After 60-75 minutes, add salt and 10 grams of warm water. You can add any other seasoning of your choice at this point like italian seasoning, sun-dried tomatoes or olives.
• Knead the dough with your hands until the salt and seasoning is mixed well.
• Now stretch and fold the dough 8 times. Then flip the dough and keep it in the bowl for another 60-75 minutes in a warm place.
• We need to repeat the same process 3 times.
• Check out the video to get a better understanding of the stretch and fold process.
• Once all the stretch and folds are done, pick up the dough and let it fold under itself. Keep it back in the bowl. Do this 7 times.
• Place the dough on a counter and using a bench scraper or just your hands, bring the dough towards yourself. Do this until you get a little tension in your dough.
• Sprinkle little flour and cover with a kitchen towel. Keep it in a warm spot for 40 minutes.
• In the meantime, take a glass bowl, cover it with a kitchen towel and sprinkle with some flour.
• After 40 minutes, pick up the dough and flip it over.
• Bring the 4 corners of the dough to the middle. Pick up the dough and place it the prepared bowl. Bring the other 4 corners to the middle. Seal the corners.
• Cover with a kitchen towel and place it in the fridge overnight. About 12- 18 hours.
• Next day in the morning, poke the dough in a corner. If the dough slowly springs back but leaves an indentation, the dough is perfectly proofed.
• Preheat the oven to 500° F and place your baking vessel in the oven for 30 mins.
• After 30 minutes, take out the dough, flip it over a parchment paper. Place it in the baking vessel.
• Score the bread and place it back in the over. Cover the bread with a lid for 30 minutes.
• After 30 minutes, reduce the temperate to 450° F and remove the lid and continue to bake for another 20-25 minutes.
• To check if the bread is done, you should hear a hollow sound when you knock at the bottom of the bread.
• Once baked, take it out and after 10 minutes,place it on a wire rack for 1 hour.
• This is definitely time consuming, but every minute pays off when we get the perfect loaf of bread!!