No knead sourdough bread…

Have you gotten in to the whole sourdough bread thing? It is something I have always wanted to explore and like thousands of others, I took advantage of this isolation period to try it out. In case you knead some inspiration, I thought I’d share with you the story of how this lovely loaf of No Knead Sourdough bread came to our patio table to be enjoyed with cheeses, meats and smears of ripe avocado and salmon spread. What more does one need on a warm spring evening?

King Arthur flour is a great resource for all things bread, I followed their procedure for birthing my sourdough starter and named him “Puff” the magic starter. It is really is pretty magical to see a full~grown loaf of bread come from a basic canning jar filled with just flour and water. The feeding process takes some getting used to, especially during the first few days, click on TIPS for more advice from King Arthur.

Once your starter has matured you can keep it in the refrigerator and you only need to feed it once a week. It has been a learning process, a little messy and disappointing at times, but now that I have had a few successes along the way I think I will be keeping a jar of starter in my refrigerator forever.

One of the emotionally difficult steps of feeding the starter is that you have to discard half of it before each feeding. But, I finally found that there are lots of recipes that call for discard, I have had great success wtih the recipe for Sourdough Pizza crust. Visit my previous post to see how you can make an delicious pizza on the grill using this recipe. The crust turns out so crunchy, chewy and deliciously charred. The whole process of making this No Knead Sourdough loaf actually takes hours, about 13 or more depending on your timing, because you have to allow the dough to rise and rest a few times. But of those hours you will only need to be actively involved for about 30 minutes, and, if you’re like me, you will be anxiously awaiting each of the developmental changes of your little ball of love along the way.

In the first rise, the dough will double in size. This may not be obvious in these images, but if you look closely at the shot above and below you can you can see that it expanded so that it covers almost the entire bottom of the oiled baking pan in the shoot below, it also grew taller.

There are many different ways to to “score” the loaf, people get very creative. Scoring allows the steam to escape from the loaf and creates those yummy crusty ridges. I did a crisscross patternand you can see how each slash created a chewy divide between squares of crunchy, golden crust.

In between the stages you are free to go about your business or even go to bed, as I did one night, to let the dough rise as I slept. I woke up to a bountiful, overflowing bowl of bubbling dough ready for the next step.

I found the whole process to be very gratifying and enlightening, it has served as a great distraction to what is going on in our world right now. It’s also been nice to be able to share bread and starter with others along the way. If you live nearby {in Seattle or Orcas Island} just let me know if you’d like some, I’d love to share a jar of starter with you!

You can also order a Fresh Starter from King Arthur or a Dehydrated Starter from Amazon.

Happy Baking, I would love to see your creations.