The Least-Complicated Sourdough Loaf Ever

This is a 1-Day, 1-Flour white sourdough that will turn you into a confident sourdough baker.

Sourdough bread baking can be cruel when you’re just starting out. The lingo can be confusing, the process complicated and the results – varying, to put it mildly.

At its core, though, it’s all very simple. To learn the basics, pick a straightforward recipe like this one. It has a low dough hydration of 65%. This means the dough doesn’t have much water in % of flour, which makes it a lot easier to handle. The higher the percentage of water compared to flour, the more skilled you need to be to handle the dough.

Once you’ve got this easier dough mastered, you’re MUCH better prepared to try out more challenging recipes.

The process for this no-frills white sourdough bread is straightforward. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the terms, read my guide or send me a message here or on Instagram.

1. Mix

Make sure that your starter is active when you start mixing. If it doesn’t show any activity, feed it until it rises and shows some nice bubbles. Now you can use it!

Mix all the ingredients together until the dough becomes homogenous. Start by adding the starter to the water and mix until you’ve got a slurry (see the image on the left). Then add flour and salt. Cover the bowl and put it somewhere nice and warm, but not hot.

2. Bulk fermentation

After the first 30 minutes of bulk fermentation, give your dough a stretch-and-fold: With a wet hand, grab one side of the dough, stretch it upwards and fold it over onto itself. Repeat with all four “sides” of the dough. You do this to give your dough some strength and help it develop gluten. Do three more stretch-and-folds, 30 minutes apart.

Bulk fermentation is on average 4 hours for this dough for me. In summer, it sometimes only takes 3 hours. You’ll know that your dough is done bulk fermenting when it passes the windowpane test (see below) and when it’s become jiggly, soft, smooth and stretchy. Don’t worry, after a couple of bakes, you’ll be able to see if your dough is ready at one glance. For more guidance refer to our post here.

The Windowpane Test

With the windowpane test, you’re checking if your dough has developed enough gluten. Take a bit of dough into your hands and gently stretch it between your fingers. Pay attention to how much you can stretch the dough before it tears (which it will, eventually).  Can you pull it so that it’s almost translucent, so you can see your fingers through the dough? Then your dough has formed enough gluten. Does it tear before it forms a windowpane? Then it needs a bit more time and/or folds before you can shape it.

3. Preshape (optional)

Turn the dough out onto your lightly floured work surface. Preshape it into a round. I’ve included a video of the great Trevor Jay Wilson doing that. You basically use one hand to round the dough. With your bench knife, or with the other hand, you create tension by pressing one side of the loaf towards the other side. Then you turn the loaf a bit and repeat.

Let the dough rest until it has relaxed a bit (30 minutes or so).

4. Shape

Shape the dough into a boule. With a stiff dough like the one we’re making here, you can use the same method for the final shape that you used for the preshape.

After shaping, put the dough with the top down into a round banneton (at least 20cm or 8″ in diameter) and cover it. Make sure that the cover doesn’t touch the dough. I always use a large ziplock bag as a cover. Flour the top of your loaf to prevent it from sticking and put the entire banneton inside the bag.

Leave the banneton someplace warm, but not hot.

5. Final proof

Proofing for this loaf takes 1 or 2 hours. I know it can be frustrating to not know if it’s the one or the other. Well, we’re almost ready to present a solution to this problem soon ;).

In the meantime, you should look at your dough every half hour or so to see if it’s ready. How do you know?

One very common test to judge the degree of final proof is the finger poke test: Use a wet finger to gently poke into you dough. Pay attention to how fast the dough springs back to fill in the indentation from your finger:

• The dough springs back fast and completely? It’s likely underproofed.

• The dough doesn’t spring back at all or only barely? It’s likely overproofed.

• The dough slowly springs back (almost) completely? It’s likely perfect.

Here’s a time-lapse of this loaf during final proofing.

6. Score your loaf (optional).

Turn your loaf out onto some parchment paper. Then use a sharp blade (I used a razor blade for this one) and make a cut across the surface of the loaf. This is called scoring, and it will determine where your dough releases steam in the oven, and how it will look.

If you don’t score your loaf, it will have a rougher look. It will crack open where it wants. Nothing wrong with that, but you might not get a picture-perfect loaf of bread.

7. Time to bake!

Preheat your oven to 500F/260C.

Put the loaf in. Reduce the temperature to 450F/232C.

Your dough will need some steam to bake perfectly. You can either use a Dutch Oven with the lid on for the first 15 minutes, or you can create some steam some other way. For example, you can pour some boiling water into a pan that you place at the bottom of the oven.

Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Bon appetit!

Let me know if you’ve got questions!