I have always, always dreamed of living in the country. When this dream came true about 6 years ago, imagine my surprise when I moved in next to Martha Stewart!
Not the real Martha Stewart of course, an even more divine version. My Martha is named Maria, and my goodness, she is the epitome of perfection in my eyes.
Maria has 5 children (I have 4), her flower gardens are immaculate (mine are not even really classified as gardens at this point), her vegetable garden feeds her family and friends entirely (mine turned into weed mountain last year and we had to whipper snip it all down), and she makes her own EVERYTHING (I make my own sourdough bread … that’s close to all).
Due to all the above information, I decided 5.9 years ago that it is best not to compare myself to this incredible person. Luckily, Martha – I mean Maria – is so kind and helpful (well, of course she would be, right? She is something else). Now that her kids are all grown and no longer at home she spends some of her time helping me with my (seemingly) endless questions about growing and making my own things.
One of the very first things Maria taught me was how to make my own sourdough bread.
I was in Maria’s kitchen one morning – and her kitchen? A thing of beauty! Her whole home in fact! They hand selected stones from a quarry and had a gorgeous stone home built which resembles the most gorgeous castle. I mean – who does that?
Ahem, anyways. I was in Maria’s kitchen one morning and she offered me a piece of homemade sourdough toast. It was the absolute most delicious piece of toast I have ever tasted. This was shortly after we moved into our home, and one of my first visits to Maria’s kitchen, so I was surprised she had made something so unbelievably delicious herself.
I decided I desperately wanted to learn to make Maria’s Sourdough Bread.
And guess what – 5 years later and I am still making it every week!
I asked Maria if I could share it with you and she said I could (of course she did, loving, giving …. Oh my Maria).
So today I am very excited to bring you ….
Maria’s Sourdough Bread
(I have made a printable recipe available for you at the bottom of this post as well)
This sourdough bread is made in 3 separate parts and takes just shy of 24 hours from start to finish. But please don’t let that scare you! It is so so so so so good, and truly very easy.
Step One: Make the Refresher Build at 4:00 pm (I don’t really know what this term means, but Maria taught me in this way so I will uphold Maria’s terminology. I am SURE it is correct terminology … because … well, Maria).
1/4 cup starter
1 cup flour
½ cup warm water
I will be writing a post very soon about how to MAKE YOUR OWN sourdough bread starter as well. In the meantime, I would strongly encourage you to post on Facebook or shoot out some emails announcing that you are looking for sourdough bread starter. Someone in your friend group will have some – I can almost assure you! And if not, hold tight, Maria is letting me know how to make starter this week and I will pass along that knowledge.
Okay, so to make the refresher build, you simply take 1/4 cup of your starter, 1 cup of flour, and ½ cup of warm water and mix it up. Cover it with a dish towel and let it rest in a warm spot.
Step Two: Make the Levain at 10:00 pm (Again, no idea about this term – sounds French though, super fancy)
Refresher Build
¼ cup warm water (93 grams)
½ cup flour (144 grams)
Add the warm water and flour to the Refresher Build and stir. Pop on the dishtowel and leave in a warm spot overnight. We live in an old farmhouse, so in the winter we don’t have a ‘warm spot’. It still turns out fine. In the morning it will be nice and bubbly
Step 3: Turn it into Sourdough Bread in the Morning (Clearly I have forgotten the third term Maria taught me)
Levain
2 ½ cups unbleached flour (610 grams)
1 ¾ cups warm water (695 grams)
1 tbsp salt (20 grams)
1 ¼ cups whole wheat flour (390 grams)
In the morning, mix all the ingredients above into the levain. It will be quite wet! Next, you will be folding the dough every hour on the hour. Maria (clearly) does this perfectly on the hour. Sarah (clearly) does it after 45 minutes, after 1.5 hours, sometimes she forgets and leaves it for almost 3 hours, etc. Don’t worry. Still turns out!
I have made a video for you showing how to “fold” the dough:
Here is the pattern to use:
Fold 6-8 times, leave for 1 hour,
Fold 6-8 times, leave for 1 hour,
Fold 5-6 times, leave for 1 hour
Fold 5-6 times, leave for 1 hour
After this, you get to shape your loaves of bread and let it rise:
Prepare two bowls or baskets with parchment paper. Flip your dough onto a floured surface and divide into two (this makes two loaves of sourdough bread) using a butter knife.
Flatten the first dough blob into a rectangle, pressing out all the air, and fold each side tightly in forming a ball. Place this into one of the prepared bowls.
I have made a video for you showing this step as well:
Repeat with the second loaf.
Place a dishtowel over the dough and allow to rise for 2 hours.
After they have been rising about 1.5 hours, preheat your oven to 450 degrees. This can vary a little bit depending on how dark and crunchy you like your bread. My kids don’t like it dark brown at all, so we set our oven to 450. Maria sets hers to 500 degrees.
Put a big soup pot (or dutch oven if you have one, Maria does, I don’t) in the oven as it preheats so it gets very hot.
Once the dough has risen for two hours, score the top of each loaf with a very sharp knife.
Remove your pot from the oven, pick up the dough by picking up the parchment paper and carefully place it into the pot and then into the oven
Bake it at 450 degrees for 20 minutes covered, and then 20 minutes uncovered.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool before tasting. I know you won’t be able to wait though, and your bread will get all smushy because you tried to cut it hot. I just know it … the smell will get to you. I have no idea who can actually wait until it is cool. Well, of course I do actually…
Maria.
I hope you and your family enjoy this sourdough bread recipe as much as my family and I do. AND I really, really, really hope you are lucky enough to have a Maria in your life.
You can download a Recipe Version of this Sourdough Bread Right Here
Thank you so much for reading friends,
xo
Sarah
Brittany says
I’m excited to get the recipe for the starter so I can make bread. Thank you!
Sarah says
Wonderful Brittany! I will get it out ASAP. Thank you for reading!
Anna says
Hahahahahaaaa!!!! Singing, “Oh Mar-ree-ah, Mah-ree-ahhh…”
Thanks for the laughing blog. My 7-yr-old enjoyed my reading of it to her (very comically). I read it last week and went starter researching. I started my starter yesterday and hope to start using it next week. 😀 (so many starts, lol).
Sarah says
Haha!! Thank you Anna! Oh, how exciting about the starter! If it works well for you, can you please share the link for the starter recipe you used? It will be useful for those who want to get started right away and not wait for my Mar-ree-ah! 🙂 I don’t want to recommend one without having heard from someone who used it successfully.
Janice Dorfling-House says
Your blog inspired me to attempt baking a sourdough bread from scratch….
Sarah says
That is wonderful Janice!! How did it go??