Shortcut Sourdough
Final Product
Video Link Here: Shortcut Sourdough
Recipe: (based on Alton Brown’s Recipe)
Ingredients
Bread Flour 35 oz. or approximately 8 1/4 cups (I highly recommend using weight for more accuracy)
2 Tablespoon honey or sugar
1 Tablespoon of yeast. (Yeast Link: I use this because it is much less expensive than buying in packets.)
1 1/2 Tablespoons of salt
24 oz water (3 cups)
Directions
Mix 1/3 of the flour, 1 tsp of yeast, all the sugar or honey, and all the water until combined. A couple lumps are ok. I would use the bowl of your mixer, if possible.
Let sit for 8-12 hours at room temperature, covered with a towel.
After letting it sit, place your bowl on the mixer with the dough hook. Add the rest of the flour and remaining 2 teaspoons of yeast and salt. You may want to hold back a bit of the flour and add it if needed so that the dough is not too dry.
Mix with dough hook. You may need to add more flour but you will mix until it has cleaned the bowl. If it has been humid, you may need more flour. If it has been dry, you may need less. The dough will pretty much clean the bowl for you when it has the right amount of flour.
Let dough rest for 20-30 minutes, then turn the mixer on with dough hook to knead for 6-8 minutes.
Lift the dough out, add oil to the bowl, coat the dough with oil and then cover the bowl with oil coated dough for 1-2 hours until doubled in size.
Punch down the dough to redistribute bubbles, Divide your dough in half. Let sit for 20 minutes and then form into round loaves. Watch the video for technique.
Put some cornmeal on an upside down sheet pan, add the loaves to the pan, cover with a towel and let rise until almost doubled.
Brush with egg wash or a mixture of cornstarch and water.
Score the top. (Watch video for one method)
Preheat oven to 450°F
Boil 4 cups of water place a oven safe dish on bottom rack and pour water in.
Place pan in oven and bake loaves until golden brown and the internal temperature is 200°F
Wait until fully cool to slice and store.
This recipe is super fun to make. When your product turns out, it is beautiful and you will feel so accomplished. I have thought many times about making a sourdough starter because I love the flavor it adds. I live in NC, however, and humidity and mold in the air are a thing. It’s very difficult to maintain starters and keep out the things you don’t want there. This method however, gives you a lot of the flour, without the commitment of maintaining a starter, which, let’s be honest, is like having another kid. I can’t even keep my basil plant, which I have named Gertrude, alive. I can’t handle the commitment of a starter.
This recipe works best for loaves that can be baked on a flat surface. You can make them longer and skinnier in a baguette style or stick with the round. The scoring is important because it creates space for the loaves to expand beyond the skin that gets created. The steam in the oven created by the boiling water that you pour in the container on the bottom rack, keeps the crust from forming long enough for the bread to rise a bit more in the oven before the yeast is killed by the heat. This oven rise is called oven spring. If you let your loaves rise too much, you will have tunnels forming or even worse, it may rise and then not be able to support its weight and collapse.
Whenever I am boiling water at home, I use an electric kettle. It works so well
If you have never made your own bread, I highly recommend you try it. It is super fun and you will learn a ton. It is a completely different experience eating bread you have made vs. bread you have purchased. Give this, or another recipe a try and let us know how it goes in the comments.