Sourdough bread is a gift from the gods.  Really.  Unfortunately, it also takes a huge amount of work, especially if you’re making it on a small scale.  On a large scale, you do almost exactly the same amount of work, but you get 300 loaves of bread instead of two.

A lot of people have shied away from bread lately, mostly as part of low carbohydrate diets.  But, the government recommends a daily intake of 300 grams of carbohydrates, and if you can’t trust the government, who can you trust?  The problem lies in the fact that most breads have large sugar contents and are so much air that they bend under the weight of even a pat of butter.

Enter sourdough breads.  Sourdough breads are dense and chewy and natural and flavorful.  And, made at home, they have no preservatives, no dough conditioners, no chemicals, and can be successfully made with very low sugar, helping you to get your daily carbohydrate requirement.  Flavor additions are endless and include nuts, seeds, dried fruit, fresh herbs and even black beans for one of my favorite southwestern style breads, but this week we’ll start with a loaf of plain bread so you can get the hang of it.

  I’ve been making sourdough bread for about 17 years, and still have that original sourdough starter I made 17 years ago.  Feed them when you need them, and keep them in the refrigerator the rest of the time, and they’ll last forever.  In satisfying my constant curiosity, I’ve made endless variations and permutations in the basic formula, and have actually found a way to make bread using commercial yeast that is virtually indistinguishable from bread made with 17-year-old starter.

Making this bread is easy beyond belief and cuts out basically all the work of making bread, assuming you own a home-style vertical mixer, otherwise known as a stand mixer.  Kitchenaid is the benchmark.  They come with three attachments — a wire whip, a flat beater and a dough hook.  If you have one of these, you can make just about anything.  Forget the bread machines. They cost just about the same for a good one, and you can only do one thing with them, and that’s make bread.

The only other thing you will need besides the obvious (an oven) is a small instant-read thermometer.  These can be purchased at restaurant wholesalers (Cash-and-Carry is an example) for about $4, or they can be bought at hardware stores or any store with a little home appliance section.  These little tools are worth their weight in gold, and every kitchen should have one.

Now, let’s get started!

Homemade sourdough bread

1⁄4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon store-bought packet yeast

11⁄2 cups water

5 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

 

Put the sugar, yeast, water and 4 cups of flour in the mixing bowl.  Mix with the dough hook on the lowest speed.  After about 1 minute, the dough should have come together and you can move up to speed 2.  (As tempting as it is, never go beyond speed 2, or you could toast your mixer’s motor.)  Stop the mixer, lift up the head, and feel the dough with your fingers just to get a gauge of what it feels like. Add the remaining cup of flour, and mix 1 minute in low to incorporate.  If your mixer has one of those rim attachments that keeps the ingredients from flying out, now’s the time to use it.  If not, just be sure to mix slowly until the flour is incorporated, so it doesn’t fly out everywhere.

Stop the mixer, push the dough ball down off the hook, and remix for 30 seconds.  The dough should be very dense and possibly just the slightest bit sticky.  Believe it or not, you’re just about done with the work!  Cover the bowl with a wet cloth, and let the dough rest for 20 minutes.  Throw in 1 teaspoon salt, and by throw, I mean throw in the bowl sideways, so it covers the maximum area, instead of just dumping in the teaspoon.  Mix for 7 minutes on second (low) speed.

Put about 1 teaspoon oil in a medium size bowl.  Take the dough out of the mixer, roll into a ball, drop in bowl and turn to coat with oil.  Let this sit on the counter for about 15 minutes, then cover with clear plastic film and put in the refrigerator.  Plan to leave in the refrigerator for at least 2 days, and up to 5 days.  This will allow the yeast to ferment and gives the dough its sourdough taste.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator.  It should have almost doubled in size.  (Amazing, isn’t it? Yeast is more robust than you would think.)  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees  and pull the dough out gently until it resembles a loaf, unless you like boules, in which case, keep it in a ball.  Sprinkle some corn meal in the bottom of a pan, place the bread on the pan, and bake for 40 minutes.  Now it’s time for the instant read thermometer.  When the bread looks done, probe the center with your thermometer.  It should read 200 degrees.  If not, return to the oven for another 10 minutes.  Keep checking until you get an internal temperature of 200 degrees.  The appearance of the loaf of bread is rarely a good indicator of whether it’s done, and I’ve admittedly never been able to tell by thumping the bottom of it looking for a hollow sound.  Once you hit 200 degrees, it’s done.

Try to let it cool some before you rip into it, then slather it with cold butter or dip it in good quality olive oil and good quality balsamic vinegar.  So, now you’ve got a loaf of bread that rivals the best San Francisco sourdough, and all it took was mixing a few ingredients in a mixer. Next time you make it, experiment with additions such as herbs, nuts, and dried fruit.

Makes 1 large loaf.

Nancy Faubel is the owner of Village Roastery, 140 Coho Point, Winchester Bay. You can also find her store online at: http://www.villageroastery.com