Hey Reader,

I realize as it starts warming up outside that heating up your kitchen by baking loaves of bread is the last thing on your To Do List.

BUT hear me out

I had to share this recipe that makes me finally feel like I can bake sourdough loaves.

It's so easy.

I don't have to discard sourdough starter. I'm not babying the loaves and taking them on errands because they needs a bajillion folds.

And I've only "ruined" two loaves by accidentally forgetting them overnight in the oven while proofing. They were super sour so I turned them into delicious bread pudding.

Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.

I believe I found this recipe (picture below) in a, of course, Facebook Group called Sourdough for Beginners.

The person who shared this had also saved it from that same group and couldn't remember who to attribute it.

Nuances to the recipe:

You need a good strong starter that's more than 2 weeks old. There are so many instructions on how to create a sourdough starter out there, but it only takes a couple weeks to get a good strong one going by using just water, flour, and air. Easy peasy.

You do need to discard part of the mixture as you're initially growing your starter, but never discard again for this recipe because it calls for an unfed starter.

Pro Tip: leave your starter in the fridge between bakes so you're not babysitting, feeding, and discarding on the daily.

What I do differently:

Honestly I don't follow this recipe explicitly now that I've been baking it for a month or so. I tend to experiment because my elevation, humidity, temperature, etc. are all probably different from the original author. So what worked for them may or may not work best for me.

I take my starter out of the fridge the night before and put it in the microwave just so it's not so cold when mixing it in the next day.

The next morning I mix all the ingredients together (I always double the recipe to make two loaves) and let it proof in one bowl, covered, in my oven until the late evening.

However, I do three folds spaced out 30 minutes or so within the first hour and a half (look sometimes I forget a fold and things still turn out well but they do help!).

After hanging out in a warm (65-75 degree) kitchen, I shape two loaves into two bowls, cover them, and put them in the fridge overnight.

Next morning I pull them out and bake them to the recipe specifications. I let them completely cool on a rack and then freeze them if not needed at that moment.

It's so much easier than some of the recipes I read about.

I've seriously seen women take loaves on errands or to their kids' soccer practices to monitor the proofing process or to do 1,343,234 folds.

No thank you. Minimum effective dose for me, please.

Happy baking and ciao for now!

Jamie

P.s. I should soon have the hatch rate data ready to share with you. Stay tuned!

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