13 Sourdough Bread Recipes For Home Bakers • Heartbeet Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to sourdough? ›

6. Just add water for softer sourdough. The secret to sourdough is simple: water. The more water you add to your dough will affect how open the crumb (bigger holes and softer texture) will be once it's baked.

All-purpose Flour

It strikes a perfect balance of softness and structure, making it an ideal choice for various recipes. Due to its wide availability and affordability, all-purpose flour is often my top recommendation for creating and maintaining a sourdough starter.

A hot Dutch oven is the perfect environment to bake sourdough because the airtight seal allows the steam to expand in the dough to help the bread rise. Additionally, the cast iron holds heat very well which helps in both the rising process and crisping of the crust.

The key taste compounds include salt, which is directly added to the dough, as well as acetic and lactic acid, produced during fermentation. After these experiments, they applied a technique called “unified flavor quantitation,” which was previously developed by Hofmann's team, to the sourdough bread.

I've since done a number of tests myself and adding a whole egg to a super strong dough with a little oil and honey has become my favourite! A pillowy soft loaf the will blow your mind and oven! Eggs in dough usually produces an extra open and delicate crumb and the bread comes with an extra rise.

Compared to whole wheat flour, rye flour is said to be the most nutrient- and amylase-dense option for a sourdough starter. Overall, it has a lower gluten protein content than wheat flour, which means it produces slack, sticky, and dense doughs.

Adding whole grain flour: Whole grain flour, particularly whole rye flour (pumpernickel), tends to promote more sour flavor in bread for two reasons. First, the type of sugars available in whole rye (or whole wheat) flour encourage a shift toward acetic acid production.

*If making sourdough is new for you, do not be discouraged if you starter takes longer to get active than mine – stick with it, it will happen! *Tap water is usually fine, if you are not sure, use boiled and cooled water, you can use it at room temperature or cool; do not use distilled water.

Baking soda or bicarbonate of soda can be used in sourdough bread to create a less sour loaf. Added after bulk fermentation, but before shaping, it can help to create a lighter, more fluffy loaf of sourdough.

Should you use parchment paper when baking sourdough bread? ›

Bake on two pieces of parchment paper to help prevent burning. As you might have noticed in my Beginner's Sourdough recipe, I typically use parchment paper (I love this natural, non-stick option) to help drag dough into the blisteringly hot Dutch oven.

My preference for regular meats like turkey, chicken, tuna or beef is toasted sour dough bread. For the spicier meats like pastrami, salami and the like is a light rye bread.

Yes it's cheaper to make your own sourdough at home, as oppose to buying it from a bakery. When you consider that sourdough is literally just flour, water and salt (including the sourdough culture), then depending on the type of flour you use, you could bake a loaf for as little as $1.

San Francisco Sourdough™

Since 1849, Boudin Bakery has been the home of a San Francisco classic. The bread that began with the gold rush—local flavor and history baked into every loaf.

In my experience, the shortest final proof (at room temperature) that I prefer to do is one hour. The longest final proof (at room temperature) is about 3 hours. When going past 2-3 hours in a final proof, the crumb tends to get very gassy and opens up large gas bubbles with a longer countertop proof.

One way you can help your sourdough to rise more is by turning on the light in your oven. Preheat the oven just slightly, then turn off the heat and place the dough inside with the light on. The warmth generated by the light helps activate the yeast, which will cause it to rise faster.

The ideal dough temperature for most breads, post-kneading, is in the 75°F to 78°F range. Water temperature: The higher the temperature of fully kneaded dough, the more likely your resulting bread will be more (rather than less) sour.

Sourdough needs time to ferment and develop flavor and rise, so you can't really decrease this time (without sacrificing oven spring) but you can do things to decrease your "hands on dough" time. My best tips for making sourdough less time consuming are: Use a stand mixer to reduce your hands on time right down.