Sourdough bread.
A traditionally French shaped sourdough boule. Allow yourself about 4 hours for the dough to be mixed, folded and shaped ready to place in the coldest part of the fridge to prove overnight. (If you are new to bread making, you can, instead of shaping the dough and putting it into a banneton, grease a 2lb bread tin liberally with butter, let the dough rise in it overnight in the fridge and then bake as per the recipe instructions below.)

The starter which has 24-Piece Baker’s Set

• Round Proofing Basket Banneton Set

• 2PCS Proving Basket 9" and 6" with Cloth Liner,

• Bread Bag,

• Lame,

• Rolling Pin,

• Scraper,

• Decor Stencils

Equipment:

A large mixing bowl
A round cane banneton
2 clean tea towels
A Dutch oven or La Cloche
A large heatproof pan, a sharp knife or ‘lame’ to slash the dough with

Ingredients
300g water
100g sourdough leaven* (made with your starter)
100g of stoneground organic wholemeal flour
400g organic strong white flour
10g fine sea salt mixed with 15g of cold water
25g rice flour mixed with 25g of stone-ground white flour (for dusting your banneton)
Semolina to dust the bottom of the baking surface

Makes 1 loaf

Directions:

Late afternoon

Mix 

In a large bowl whisk your water and starter and mix well. Add all the flour and mix until all the ingredients come together into a large ball.

Cover with a clean damp cloth and let the dough rest on the side in the kitchen for between 30 minutes and 2 hours – this what bakers call Autolyse

What is Autolyse?

An autolyse is the gentle mixing of the flour and water in a bread recipe, followed by a 20 to 60 minute rest period. After the rest, the remaining ingredients are added and kneading begins. This simple pause allows for some rather magical changes to occur in your bread dough.

Bulk Mix

The bulk mix is when we incorporate all of our ingredients before the dough begins its first rise. For this bulk mix, incorporate your dry ingredients, the flour, and salt, in a mixing bowl. Create a divot or well in the centre of the dry mixture and add your proved yeast and water to the flour and salt.

I like using a dough whisk or bowl scraper to do the heavy lifting of mixing the dry and wet ingredients, but if you like, dig your hands in and get messy, you'll know your flour is hydrated enough when the dough clumps start coming off your hands or your preferred mixing tool. As flour becomes hydrated, the proteins in flour gliadin and glutenin begin to bond, forming the early stages of our gluten network!

You may need to add additional flour if the dough is sticking a bit. Use a bowl scraper to get all the flour and dough from the edges of the bowl. When all the dry flour is completely hydrated and incorporated and feels tacky to the touch, wait five to ten minutes before beginning the next step - kneading.

We allow the dough to briefly rest before kneading so that the dough has a moment to hydrate more evenly before kneading. Kneading also inherently lowers the temperature of our dough as we work air into the warm water we added, so this brief rest on the countertop, also known as a bench rest, gives the yeast the opportunity to feed and ferment rapidly at a slightly warmer temperature.

Fold

Add the salt mixed with the water and dimple your fingers into the dough to allow the salty water and salt to distribute evenly throughout the dough.  Leave for 10 minutes.

Next, lift and fold your dough over, do a quarter turn of your bowl and repeat three more times. Repeat 3 times at 30-minute intervals with a final 15-minute rest at the end.

Kneading

In breadmaking, we work doughs in many many ways. By kneading, folding, and stretching the dough, we help recently hydrated flour that has formed all that delicious gluten becomes organized into a structure that encourages evenly developed fermentation. The more you mix, stretch and work the dough, the tougher the gluten network becomes. Kneading pushes air into the dough's gluten network while encouraging elasticity and consistency of hydration and temperature.

This kind of dough requires about 10 minutes of kneading. The kneading process smooths, lengthens and stretches the gluten strands. You can feel that kneading is complete when the dough no longer sticks to your hands and has a smooth and consistent texture. This bulk mass will expand and rise as the yeast ferments and releases gasses.

You can also check gluten development in your kneaded dough by performing what is called a 'Window Pane Test'.

The Window Pane test is performed by taking a small piece of dough off the kneaded dough mass and pinching it between your thumbs and first two fingers. If you can expand your fingers, stretching the dough into a thin sheet that is translucent when held up to a light source, your gluten is developing!

If the dough rips while you are stretching and checking for development, add your sample piece back into the larger mass and continue kneading for a few minutes until you re-test to achieve a glow coming through an even sheet of dough.

Place your dough into a clear bowl so that you may monitor its development progress, and allow to rest for 1-2 hours or until it has doubled in volume.

Shape

Shape the dough lightly into a ball then place into a round banneton dusted with flour (If you don’t have a banneton then use a clean tea towel dusted with flour inside a colander). Dust the top with flour, then cover with a damp tea-towel

Prove

Leave your dough to one side until it is 50% bigger then transfer to the fridge, and leave to prove there for 8 – 12 hours.

Bake the following morning

The next morning preheat your oven to 220°C for at least 30 minutes before you are ready to bake. Place your cloche or baking stone in the oven and a large pan of boiling water underneath (or use a Dutch oven). The hydration helps form a beautiful crust.

Once the oven is up to full heat, carefully remove the baking stone from the oven, taking care not to burn yourself dust with a fine layer of semolina, which stops the bread sticking, then put your dough onto the baking stone and slash the top with your blade. This decides where the bread will tear as it rises. Bake for an hour.

Turn the heat down to 180°C (and remove the lid if you are using a Dutch oven) and bake for another 10 -15  minutes.  You need to choose just how dark you like your crust but I suggest that you bake until it is a dark brown – it tastes much better.

Storage

Sourdough is really best left to cool completely before slicing and is even better if left for a day to let the full flavour develop.

Once your sourdough has cooled, store in a linen or cotton bread bag, or wrapped in a clean tea towel.

Note: if you don’t like a crunchy crust on your sourdough bread, simply wrap your bread in a clean tea towel whilst it is still warm.