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Sourdough Loaf

Risen slowly overnight, baked in a cast iron pot. Crackly crust, soft middle.

Makes

One round loaf

Hands on

20 min

All in

20 h

Oven

230 °C (450 °F)

What you need

• ½ cup (125 ml) / 100 gactive starter, bubbly and risen
• 1½ cups (350 ml)water, lukewarm
• 4 cups (500 g)bread flour
• 2 tsp (10 g)salt

How it goes

1. 1

   Mix the starter, water and flour until no dry flour is left. Leave it 45 minutes, covered.

2. 2

   Add the salt and squeeze it through. Over the next 2–3 hours, four times, wet your hand and fold the dough over itself four times around the bowl. Thirty seconds each, then leave it alone.

3. 3

   Let it rise at room temperature until it is puffy, domed and roughly half again its size — 4 to 6 hours depending on your kitchen. Time is a guess; the look is the answer.

4. 4

   Shape into a tight round, seam down, and put it in a floured bowl or banneton seam side up. Cover and refrigerate overnight, 10 to 14 hours.

5. 5

   Put the Dutch oven in cold and heat oven and pot together to 230 °C (450 °F) — give it a full 45 minutes. The pot has to be genuinely hot.

6. 6

   Tip the cold loaf onto parchment, score one confident slash about 1 cm deep, and lower it in. Lid on, 25 minutes. Lid off, 20–25 minutes more, until deep brown.

7. 7

   Cool on a rack at least an hour. Cutting it hot turns the crumb gummy — this is the hardest instruction in baking.

A couple of things

• This is the one recipe here that genuinely wants a scale. Flour measured by cup swings 15–20% and sourdough notices.
• The lid is doing what a steam-injected bakery oven does: trapping the loaf's own moisture so the crust stays soft long enough to spring.

Contains : wheat