How to Make Sourdough with Hungry Anja -

I’m Anja behind @hungry_anja and I’ll guide you through how to make sourdough with this baking checklist. When starting your sourdough journey, you might find it confusing to navigate through all of the information including different timings and methods, and that’s exactly why I have created this simple checklist to make this learning process as straightforward as possible.

For the Starter:

I work with white flour starter and I always keep approximately 50g of starter in the fridge. This way I don’t have much sourdough discard and I don’t have to worry about feeding my starter daily. For example, if I want to bake on Saturday morning I will take the starter out of the fridge on Friday, feed it with 50g white flour and 50g water, leave it at room temp for approx. 6-8hours until it doubles and passes the float test.

For the Dough:

8am – get your starter from the fridge and feed it, leave at room temperature until it doubles. 6-8hours should be more then enough but it all depends on how warm it actually is in your house. Just make sure to perform a float test before adding the starter to your dough.

2-3pm – add 100g active starter to a bowl and mix with 280g water (go with 260g water if you’re still not used to working with higher hydration dough). Add 400g strong white bread flour (stick to strong white flour if you are a beginner) and mix together with hands or a scraper until there are no dry patches.

Autolyse for 60min covered up, at room temperature. If you want to make sure that the room temperature is consistent throughout the whole process, keep the dough in the turned off oven.

4pm – notice how your dough is now more elastic after an hour of resting, that’s what autolyse is for! Now add 10g salt and a few drops of water (so the salt dissolves easily) and start performing slap & fold technique for 5-6min. Let it rest in the oven again covered for 20min.

4.30pm – time for lamination, this step involves stretching your dough on the counter to open it to a big rectangle and then folding it together. This will help build up the structure. Rest for 30min.

5pm – perform coil & fold three times in a row, leaving the dough to rest for 30min in between.

6.30pm – after performing last coil & fold, leave the dough to rise for about 1.5-2hours.

8-8.30pm – it’s time for final shaping! I leave the dough to rest in the banneton for 20-30min before going to the fridge for 10-12hours.

Next day 8am – turn the oven on to 260oC and heat your Denby cast iron pot for 30-40min – I used Denby’s Pavilion Cast Iron 24cm Round Casserole. Get the dough out of the fridge, transfer it to parchment paper and by using a sharp razor score your sourdough. All you need is one long angled slash to allow the dough to expand during baking.

8.30am – bake covered for approx. 20min at 260oC and then another 15-20min at 200oC uncovered. Don’t cut it while warm, make sure to wait at least for an hour. I know it’s hard, but otherwise your sourdough will become gummy and will change the structure.