I have been making sourdough bread for a few years, mostly with great results but these were inconsistent. Whenever the bread was good I could attribute it to sheer luck and lots of sweat. I had tried all manners of recipes including the no-knead one but I still wasn't quite happy with the resulting bread.

A few months ago I decided I had had it. I had had it with not knowing how my bread would turn out after toiling away for hours, or sometimes for days, kneading bread and nurturing the culture. Forgive me for being so dramatic but there is nothing worse than chewing on tough, tasteless, horrid bread after working at it for hours. Especially now that I'm wearing braces. If I am going to risk breaking my braces (never mind the pain involved) it'd better be for very good bread. My ever philosophical husband would dare say there are worse things in life but he isn't here to defend himself ... my point stands.

In my determination to find a sourdough bread suited to both my increasingly erratic schedule and  quite fastidious tastebuds, I decided to delve further into the nature of sourdough culture while trying to  not let the process turn me into an angry little baker. Tricky. All I wanted was bread that I would enjoy eating, never mind looks or size of crumb. Of course, texture and mouth feel were concerns, but, to me, it all boiled down to flavour. I read up on the subject and tested a few recipes and narrowed down on the ones that produced lovely, complex flavours in the resulting bread, recipes which weren't too technically difficult to learn and were easy to manage by anyone with a day off to spare.  After several months testing different recipes, I present you with two of my favourite ones.

The first one is my adaptation of Calvel's white sourdough. Calvel was a master French baker whose seminal book, "The Taste of Bread" is highly sought-after by keen bakers. I have tried to source the book to no avail as it is out of print and is thus prohibitively priced. His recipes have been described by other bakers as obscure and overly complex but I was able to google a recipe from a reputable source who was able to make sense of one of his recipes for 100% sourdough bread. Calvel's bread is chewy, complex and utterly delicious.

The second recipe is one I adapted from here. The author of this website, Warwick Quinton is a well-known Australian baker whose sourdough bread has to be tasted to be believed. His recipes are very much achievable by most and are quite flexible. Quinton's bread yields a softer, less sour, more tender bread than Calvel's but one that is extremely easy to consume. Both Calvel's and Quinton's recipes are quite easy to master and as the results are consistent and eminently edible they have both become keepers. We love a keeper, don't we?

I almost forgot, if you don't have sourdough starter you should refer to Quinton's page here where he will walk you through the steps necessary in order to make your own. The best time to start this bread is on Friday morning or the weekend, that is, if you don't go to work on weekends.

Calvel's White Levain Bread, adapted from a recipe here



Makes 8 medium-sized loaves, you will need both a refresher culture and a sponge. This recipe will yield two batches. I learned this the hard way by dumping the whole dough into the mixer bowl of my heavy duty Kitchenaid. Hearing and smelling the struggle wasn't pleasant. Start the process at around 7am on the day before baking.

Ingredients for refresher culture

  • Sourdourgh starter: 55 grams
  • Light rye flour: 70 grams
  • Filtered water: 40 grams

In a plastic, glass or ceramic bowl (no metal bowls as metal interferes with the sourdough) mix the above ingredients with a spoon until thoroughly blended. Let this rest, covered with a tea towel for about 8 hours in a cool, draft-free area. This is flexible, you can start this before work and come back to a strong refresher and ready for the next step.

Ingredients for sponge

  • Refresher culture: 160 grams
  • White organic flour, unbleached: 190 grams
  • Filtered water: 115 grams

In a non-metallic bowl mix above ingredients until throroughly blended and let it rest covered, in a cool, draft-free area overnight.

Finally, the ingredients for the actual bread

  •     Sponge: 2 batches of 232 grams each
  •     White organic flour: 2 batches of 1 kilogram each
  •     Filtered water: 2 batches of 640 grams each
  •     Salt: 2 batches of 17 grams each

You should start this at around 10am, baking day.


Mix flour and water in the mixer bowl and knead for 5 minutes on low speed. Leave it to rest for 30 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients into the bowl and knead for another 6 to 7 minutes. Divide the dough and shape the bread. I line baking trays with wax paper and place the shaped dough on them. You can place dough into bread tins as well, just make sure that the bread only fills one third of the bread tin as it will increase in size considerably. Sprinkle with flour and slash bread with a very, very sharp knife, the slashing helps dough increase in size. 

Once your dough has been shaped, sprinkled with flour and slashed it is now ready for proofing. One easy way to do this is to cover the dough with an upturned plastic storage container. This box serves two purposes, one is to prevent a skin forming on the dough which might impede proofing and the other one is to keep the environment around the dough warm and humid. All good for successful proofing. These boxes are inexpensive and are worth having around if you are a baker.

Preheat oven to 230 C. Once oven reaches the right temperature place place baking trays or tins on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until bread is golden brown on the surface and sounds hollow when knocked. Let bread cool on a wire rack.


White Sandwich Sourdough, adapted from a recipe here



Makes 3 medium-sized loaves. This recipe for sourdough develops taste and complexity through various stages. Don't worry, all you are asked to do is to incorporate flour into the dough and then letting it rest. I recommend starting this dough at 7am in order to be able to bake in the evening of the same day.

Ingredients

  • Sourdough starter: 250 grams, ripe
  • White organic flour: 1 kilogram
  • Filtered warm water: 2 cups
  • Salt: 20 grams

In a large non-metallic bowl and a wooden spoon mix the warm water, starter and 250 grams of flour. Mix until all is well incorporated. This will make a thin slurry. Cover with a teatowel and let stand in a warm place for an hour. Warwick Quinton recommends leaving it on top of a coffee machine and this tip worked really well for me. It would work just as well to leave it inside the oven.

Add another 250 grams of flour to the above mix and stir it thoroughly with a wooden spoon. This will become a thick batter. Again, cover and leave to rest for 3 hours.

Uncover and add 250 grams of flour more, stir with a spoon, cover and let it rest for another 3 hours.

Add the final 250 grams of flour and the salt. Move the dough to a mixer bowl and let your machine knead for a good 12 minutes. That is how long mine took. The dough should look silky smooth when ready. I usually perform the window pane test to ascertain doneness. The Kitchn explains this test in a most succint and lucid manner.

You can now shape your dough into whichever form you prefer (perhaps lining a sandwich pan with baking paper and placing a cylinder of dough in it would be the easiest way). Sprinkle it with flour and then slash it with a sharp knife or a box cutter.

Once your dough has been shaped, sprinkled with flour and slashed it is now ready for proofing. One easy way to do this is to cover the dough with an upturned plastic storage container. This box serves two purposes, one is to prevent a skin forming on the dough which might impede proofing and the other one is to keep the environment around the dough warm and humid. All good for successful proofing. These boxes are inexpensive and are worth having around if you are a baker.

Once the bread has tripled or quadrupled in size, mine took 4 hours,  you are ready to bake. Preheat oven to 200 C and bake anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes depending on your oven. Your bread should be golden brown on top and sound hollow when knocked.