Foolproof Dutch Oven Sourdough
No kneading and no stress. Mix it before bed, shape it after breakfast, and there is warm bread by lunch.
Ingredients
The loaf
- ½ cup active, bubbly starter
- 1½ cups lukewarm water
- 3 cups flour
- 1½ tsp salt
Feeding the starter
- ½ cup starter
- ½ cup lukewarm water
- 1 cup flour
Method
- 1 Feed the starter.
Eight to twelve hours before you mix the dough, take ½ cup of starter and stir in ½ cup lukewarm water until cloudy, then mix in 1 cup of flour with a fork. Leave it on the counter until it is good and bubbly. Discard the rest of the old starter or save it for a discard recipe.
- 2 Mix the dough before bed.
Stir the starter, water, flour, and salt together with a fork, then use your hand to form a quick, shaggy mound. No kneading. Cover the bowl.
- 3 Let it rise overnight.
Leave the covered bowl on the counter to rise about 12 hours. It should look puffy and alive by morning.
- 4 Shape it into a ball.
Fold the dough into itself from the corners to make a ball. Set the ball seam side down on parchment paper inside the dutch oven, cover, and let it rise 2 to 3 hours in a warmer spot of the house.
- 5 Bake.
Bake at 450° with the lid on for 25 minutes, then take the lid off and bake 20 minutes more, until deeply golden.
- 6 Cool and consume.
Let the loaf cool on a rack before slicing, if your family lets it last that long.
A few notes.
- — All of the times are super flexible, so do not stress or get hyper fixated on the clock.
- — I keep a mother jar of starter in the fridge, about a cup. The day before baking, I split it into two jars and feed both. The mother goes back in the fridge and the new jar stays on the counter, covered loosely with plastic and a rubber band.
- — A cold starter needs to come to room temperature before it is fed, so bring it out early.