My childhood home in Vietnam was within walking distance to this delicious sandwich shop. They made everything fresh there, the bread, the meat, the butter and talking about it makes my mouth water. What I remember most is the smell of fresh baked bread. It was so light, crunchy and airy.
So imagine my surprise when I came to the U.S. and bought my first loaf of “fresh baked” bread. Somehow the bread transformed itself overnight and became hard as a rock…and I mean hard…like you can knock someone off their feet with this so called bread. I tried countless number of different brands of bread, even the so called artisan fresh baked bread. The end result was the same, hard as a rock the next day. This is why I decided to make my own sourdough bread at home. Notice all the holes in the bread, indicating it’s airy and light 😋.
Where to start?
First thing you need is to either start your own sourdough starter from scratch, or you can buy a sourdough starter. I’ve done both, started my own sourdough starter from scratch (more on that in a later post) and used an already made sourdough starter.
I have my own sourdough starter, now what?
After I made my own sourdough starter, my son named it Sao, short for sourdough🤣.
Feed your starter…what does it mean?
I got my starter from a friend who has been making sourdough bread from scratch for a very long time. The first thing I did when I got my starter home was feed it. Before I go into how to feed it and how often, let me explain what feeding it means. Any time someone says “feed your starter” it just means add some more flour and water (a.k.a. food) to your starter. This food will feed the bacteria in the starter and help it stay alive, grow…double in size.
When to feed your starter?
I like to feed my starter after I’ve taken some of the starter out to use for making the dough for the bread. This way I can replenish what I took out to keep the starter alive and growing. Since I make fresh sourdough bread everyday, I feed my starter everyday. However, if you’re planning to make bread every other day, just feed the starter every other day instead.
How to feed your starter?
The feeding process is simple. After you take out half of the starter (to either use in making the dough or to discard) you add 100 grams of luke warm water to the starter. Give it a quick stir and then add 100 grams of all purpose flour and give it another stir to make sure all the new flour is dissolved.
Storing your starter
After feeding your starter, store it in a warm place with the lid ajar. Why? Because the bacteria in the starter needs to breathe. It’s fine to store at room temperature if you’re feeding it once or every other day. Any time longer than that, store it in the fridge.
Making the dough for baking bread
Now that you know how to feed and keep your starter alive, you can go ahead and use it to bake some sourdough bread. But how do you tell if the starter is ready to be used in baking? Well, if it’s alive it will double in size and have lots of bubbles, which means it’s ready to be used to make dough.
Most of the sourdough bread recipes I’ve seen are quite complicated. Mix ingredients and then let it sit for certain amount of hours and then fold and let rise again. Who has time to babysit sourdough? Not me. So I’ve found a way to make sourdough bread with the least amount of work possible 🤣.
All I do is weigh out a certain amount of starter, add it to bread flour, salt, water and mix it with my hands until everything is combined. You can also use the dough hook attached to the stand mixer to mix the dough. I just leave the dough covered in a warm place overnight to rise. Then I bake it in the morning. Easy peasy. The bread turns out great every time.
Storing your baked sourdough bread
I like to minimize waste as much as possible so I usually store my bread in an airtight container. Surprisingly it will remain soft and delicious for few days even without all the added chemicals, although we never make it that far because it is soooo good. Confession, I bake fresh bread everyday. If you don’t have a container big enough for it, use the reusable wrappers. These are great because they are like saran wrap but can be washed with cold water and reuse.
Using your homemade sourdough bread
There are endless ways to use up your homemade sourdough bread. One of my favorite is to use it to make Vietnamese sandwiches (a.k.a. bánh mì). To make the baguette shaped bread, I use this baguette baking pan. Instead of baking it in the dutch oven, I place the dough on the baguette baking pan and bake it with a water bath at the same temperature.
You can also spread some homemade pate on it. Check out my homemade pate post to see how I make my pate.
To summarize…
When I give the starter to friends and family, the common confusion is differentiating between the starter and the dough itself. So I’ve created a flow chart to help.
Start by asking yourself: Am I making sourdough bread today?
Yes
- Remove 1 cup of starter from the jar and place it in a mixing bowl
- Add 500 grams of bread flour
- Add 16 grams of salt
- Add 300 grams of luke-warm water. If you want to add any fresh herbs, add it here. Thyme and rosemary are my go-to herbs for this bread.
- Mix all ingredients together by hand until everything is combined. You can also use the stand mixer for this.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit in a warm place over night.
- In the morning the dough should have doubled in size. If not, place the covered bowl in the oven and use the “proof” button to expedite the proofing process for 2-3 hours.
- Once it’s done proofing or have doubled in size, preheat the oven to 400oF.
- Transfer the dough into a Dutch oven (6 quart).
- With the lid on, place the dutch oven in the oven and let it bake (with the lid on) for 35 minutes.
- Then remove the lid and continue baking at 400oF for 15 minutes.
- After the 15 minutes, I crank the oven temperature to 450oF (with the lid still off) so the top can get nice and brown. This usually takes 5-8 minutes.
- After the bread is done baking, place it on a cooling rack for 30 minutes before cutting into it and enjoying.
- Now that you’ve made the dough for the bread, while it’s proofing, you need to feed your starter.
- Take your existing starter jar.
- Add to it 100 grams of luke-warm water and 100 grams of all purpose flour.
- Mix until all the new flour is combined with the existing flour in the jar.
- Leave the lid ajar and store the starter jar in a warm place.
- You should see bubbles in a few hours indicating that the bacteria is alive.
No
- Discard half of the starter
- Feed the starter by adding 100 grams of all purpose flour and 100 grams of luke-warm water
- Stir until everything is combined
- Store with lid ajar in a warm place for at least 8 hours
- Repeat steps 1-4 every 2 days
- If you’re going to be leaving on vacation, store your starter in the refrigerator
- Upon your return, give the starter a stir
- Repeat steps 1-4
- After the starter has been fed and sitting at room temperature for at least 8 hours, you can use it to make dough for bread.
The next time you’re craving bread, resist the urge to buy it from the store and make it at home instead. Trust me, you will never go back to store bought bread.
If you find this post helpful, please share it on Facebook by using the button below.
