I hope that everyone who celebrates had a very Happy Easter yesterday! We went to church, then checked out a new brunch place before heading to my parent’s for dinner. It was the end of our Spring Break, so today it is back to school. Over break I finally videoed my crusty sourdough discard bread! I am excited to finally share it with you on the blog. You can also check out my video on YouTube below.
Why use sourdough discard?
So why did I make this crusty sourdough discard bread? In an effort to use left over sourdough discard. For those of you unfamiliar with sourdough started you need to constantly feed it a ratio of water and flour. The amount depends on how much starter you have. In my case I usually use 50 grams of starter and then feed it with 100 grams of fresh milled flour and 100 grams of water, which gives me 250 grams of starter. A great amount for when I need to make sourdough recipes, as I will use most for the recipe then feed the left over to maintain my stater.
But what about when I’m not cooking sourdough, and I am simply feeding it to maintain it? Well then I have to discard all but 50 grams of starter. I hated throwing away all of that unfed started so I figured I would use it to make recipes, which is why this recipe came to be.
Ingredients in crusty sourdough discard bread
The ingredients couldn’t be simpler:
- Flour: I use bolted hard white wheat. If you don’t mill your own flour at home you can use whole grain flour. All purpose would work to, but you would probably need to increase your flour amount or decrease the water.
- Water
- Unfed sourdough discard
- Yeast: instant or active. If using active yeast you need to proof it before using. Instant you can just mix right into the dough.
- Sugar
- Salt
Step by Step instructions for Crusty Sourdough Discard Bread
Step one:
Mix the water, flour, sourdough discard, sugar and yeast together. Remember if you are using active yeast you need to proof it before adding it to the dough.
Step two:
Cover with a wet towel and allow this to autolyze for 15-30 minutes. After this add the salt and perform a series of stretch and folds. The dough is not going to to super stretchy, and will still tear easily. Just do your best to give it some folds. Once again cover with a wet towel and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
Step three:
After 15 minutes perform another set of stretch and folds.
Step four:
And one more sets of stretch and folds. By now it should be much stretchier than when you first started. It won’t get quite as stretchy as a normal sourdough.
Step five:
Allow dough to rest for about 30 minutes. It should almost double in size. While dough is resting put your dutch oven into the oven and preheat everything to 500 degrees.
Step six:
Transfer to a banneton, put in a plastic bag and put in fridge for about an hour. I like to pinch the top of the bread a little to give it some tension.
Step seven:
After an hour take dough out of fridge. Transfer to a piece of parchment paper, then score.
Step eight:
Take preheated dutch oven out of the oven, put dough into the dutch oven and put the lid on. Put back into the oven and lower temperature to 425 degrees. Bake for 22 minutes with lid on, and 12 minutes with lid off.
Step nine:
Allow to cool for at least one hour before cutting.
And that’s it! I really do love how easy it is for this to come together. No trying to figure out when you need to feed your started in order for it to be ready to bake with. Just mix everything together and bake it the same day.
You obviously aren’t getting the same benefits from letting the grains ferment longer like you do with a normal sourdough loaf. This loaf also won’t taste as sour as a traditional loaf of sourdough bread, but it sill make a great bread to eat with soup or make sandwiches out of.
If you are looking for other discard recipes check out these muffins. I hope to play around and create more discard recipes, so be on the look out!
Crusty Sourdough Discard Bread with Fresh Milled Flour
Ingredients
- 400 grams bolted hard white wheat flour Don't have fresh milled flour? You can use whole wheat flour. You could also use all purpose flour, but would need 10-20 grams more.
- 280 grams water
- 140 grams sourdough discard
- 6 grams yeast instant or active dry will work
- 8 grams sugar
- 8 grams salt
Instructions
- Proof your yeast (if using active dry) by mixing it with a little water, and the sugar.
- Mix the flour, water, proofed yeast, and discard together and allow to autolyze for 15-30 minutes.**Note: if use instant yeast you can add it right to the dough without proofing it.
- Add the salt perform a series of stretch and folds. Cover with a wet towel and let rest for 15 mintues.
- Perform two more sets of stretch and folds 15 minutes apart. After the last stretch and fold you are going to let the dough rest until doubled. About 30 minutes.
- While the dough is resting put your dutch oven in a cold oven and preheat to 500℉.
- After 30 minutes transfer the dough to a banneton. I like to pinch the top of the dough to give it some tension. Place inside a grocery bag and rest in fridge for 1 hour.
- After the hour take the dough out, transfer to a piece of parchment paper and score the top.
- Take the dutch oven out of the oven place the dough into the dutch oven, then put the lid on and put it back into the oven.
- Lower the oven temperature to 425℉. Bake it for 22 minutes with the lid on, then 12 minutes with the lid off.
- Allow to cool for at least one hour before cutting.