This recipe is about the easiest one you’ll find while still being sourdough, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t also taste amazing. Great for a weekend lunch with friends and family served with pasta, homemade pesto and platters of meats, cheeses and grilled veggies. Or reheat this the next day to make out of this world grilled cheese sandwiches!
Ingredients
100 g active starter
10 g kosher salt
420 g water, room temperature
500 g all purpose or bread flour
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus more for drizzling
Herbs of your choice, suggested are thyme, rosemary, caramelised onions, crumbled goats cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and torn kalamata olives. Use any combination of these for amazingly different versions from the same recipe
Nice, flaky sea salt
Instructions
Place the starter, salt, and water in a large bowl. Stir with a spatula to combine — it doesn’t have to be uniformly mixed. Add the flour. Mix again until the flour is completely incorporated.
If time permits, perform one “fold”: 30 minutes after you mix the dough, reach into the bowl and pull the dough up and into the centre. Turn the bowl quarter turns and continue this pulling 8 to 10 times.
Drizzle with a splash of olive oil and rub to coat. Cover bowl with a tea towel or saran wrap and set aside to rise at room temperature (70ºF/21ºC) for 4 to 18 hours (the time will vary depending on the time of year, the strength of your starter, and the temperature of your kitchen — in summer, for instance, my sourdoughs double in 6 hours; in winter, they double in 18 hours. Do not use an oven with the light on for the bulk fermentation — it will be too warm. It is best to rely on visual cues (doubling in volume) as opposed to time to determine when the bulk fermentation is done. A straight-sided vessel makes monitoring the bulk fermentation especially easy because it allows you to see when your dough has truly doubled.
When dough has doubled, place 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a 9×13-inch pan. (As a precaution, you may want to butter it it first — I have had disasters with bread sticking when I’ve used oil alone with other baking vessels.)
Drizzle dough with a tablespoon of olive oil. Use your hand to gently deflate the dough and release it from the sides of the bowl. Gently scoop the dough into the center of the pool of oil in your prepared pan. Fold dough envelope style from top to bottom and side to side to create a rough rectangle. Turn dough over so seam-side is down.
Rub top of dough with oil. Leave alone for 4 to 6 hours, uncovered, or until puffy and nearly doubled.
Heat oven to 425ºF. Rub hands lightly with oil, and using all ten fingers, press gently into the dough to dimple and stretch the dough to nearly fit the pan. Sprinkle generously with sea salt. Transfer pan to the oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until golden all around. Remove pan from oven and transfer bread to a cooling rack. Cool at least 20 minutes before slicing.
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