For picnics or barbecues, try serving this easy, light dessert. It didn’t last very long when I cooked it recently for a picnic. Depending on the fruit you have on hand, you can easily swap another fruit.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 25 mins |
| Additional Time: | 21 hrs |
| Total Time: | 21 hrs 55 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 1 loaf |
Ingredients
- 100 grams active sourdough starter
- 394 grams bread flour
- 250 grams water
- 8 grams kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons rice flour, or as needed
Instructions
- Gather all ingredients.
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- Place starter into a bowl. Add bread flour, water, and salt; mix until well blended and sticky.
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- Cover with aluminum foil and let stand for 4 hours at 70 to 75 degrees F (21 to 24 degrees C).
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- Uncover dough and use wet hands to fold it over onto itself three to four times. Cover again with foil and let ferment for 2 more hours.
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- Generously dust a proofing basket (banneton) with rice flour.
- Scrape dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Shape into a ball with a smooth, unbroken surface, using just enough flour on the surface to keep it from sticking. Place dough into the prepared basket with the smooth side down. Pinch the rougher edges on the surface together toward the center to smooth them while maintaining a round ball shape.
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- Cover and refrigerate for 12 hours to slow the fermentation process.
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- Remove the banneton from the refrigerator. Let sit in a warm spot until dough springs back slowly and retains a slight indentation when poked gently with a finger, about 3 to 5 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Dust surface of dough with flour. Gently invert the banneton over the center of the baking sheet and flip dough out onto the parchment paper. Gently brush off excess rice flour. Score top of dough about 1/8-inch deep with a sharp knife to create a shallow slit running across the center. Mist the entire surface lightly with water.
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- Bake in the center of the preheated oven until beautifully browned, 25 to 30 minutes.
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- Transfer loaf to a wire rack and let cool completely before slicing.
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- Plan ahead! My
- takes 10 days to make.
- If you don’t have a banneton, you can line a similarly sized bowl with a tightly woven cotton kitchen towel and generously coat it with rice flour. I’ve done that before, and it works exactly the same. The only difference is the wooden basket breathes, unlike a metal bowl, but I don’t think that’s a big deal.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 205 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 41 g |
| Cholesterol | 0 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 7 g |
| Saturated Fat | 0 g |
| Sodium | 405 mg |
| Sugars | 0 g |
| Fat | 1 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I have become addicted to this bread and make a loaf almost weekly. The only thing different that I do is that I use a hand mixer rather than just hand mixing and I add a little more starter to my bread than the recipe calls for.
Not much rising. Ok flavor but wasn’t all that impressed. I’ve made much better.
My first time making sourdough bread. I followed the instructions and it came out perfectly!
I love this recipe. It is just right for me — foolproof!
Thank you for the illustrated help with my first loaf of sourdough bread. The video is excellent reference, I watched the entire video, then went back step by step, pausing when needed.
Directions were easy to follow and I’ve been making this recipe for the last few months. It’s has a nice crust with a soft inside. This is my go to whenever I want an easy no fuss recipe.
I made no changes to this recipe and had fantastic results.. thanks so much for this great recipe. For this the starter was one I’ve been keeping going for about 15 years . BTW prior to me getting this starter it was someone elses for about 40 years .. so share those starters!
loved it…i split it into two because i wanted smaller loaves
I didn’t make any changes as of yet. As Basic as it is, I think it’s pretty darn good. Besides , my familly and friends love it. Thanks Chef and yes i’m a Big Fan
I did not have a banneton, so I used the bowl and towel method. I also cooked in a parchment paper line cast iron dutch oven. Cooked for 30 minutes with the lid on and finished with the lid off. Bread turned out great.
I used my own starter that I have had for years and the results were excellent . I always baked my bread in a cast iron dutch oven…has anyone ever tried this recipe and baked it in a dutch oven?
Best bread ever! Been making it for a while now and thought I’d rate it. I mix in cracked pepper, or add fresh herbs, and really like to add black cumin seeds.
I used Chef John’s Sourdough starter recipe but didn’t end up feeling like the starter was thick enough (or ready enough) to try baking any bread with until it had been going for at least a month. I’ve always had problems and been unsuccessful with created a sourdough starter using just water and flour until I gave his starter directions a shot. I appreciated the detail he gave and decided that I had to stick with him for the bread. The most experience I’ve previously had with bread has been limited to bread machine recipes or making basic biscuits and yeast rolls, pizza doughs.. nothing that’s very real from scratch without using commercial yeast. I wanted a “real” “primitive” sourdough bread recipe and this one did not disappoint. The flavor was amazing. Second batch I made I was able to improve on “getting the air out” of the dough and my texture was much improved. I absolutely LOVE this bread. I seriously appreciate Chef John making the recipe and video simple enough for beginner bread bakers to follow and understand (and for explaining what a banneton is and giving some basic terminology used in this form of bread making). I’ve researched sourdough breads like this one before (just flour, water, and salt) and was absolutely overwhelmed by the complicated and confusing directions, terminology, and just…. over explaining given in those recipes with their 200 steps involved no less. I appreciate Chef John for keeping it simple and making it easy enough so that someone who already has an overwhelming work schedule, etc.. can get started with some basic, beginner bread making. I will definitely be checking out his blog!
I have been making this recipe for a few years now and it is the best. I don’t have a banneton or a dutch oven and yet the bread is simply amazing!
It was lovely and simple enough but it needed just a tad more salt to our liking. I wish I knew how to make the crust a little more crunchy!
Followed the recipe exactly. Dough was to sticky, and would not hold a form. And can never get it to look like to picture.
Easy recipe to make, good flavour (mostly based on your flour, starter and salt) and looks good.
I made this using their recipe for sourdough starter, we all loved it and it didn’t last past dinner. I served it with beef stew I made in the slow cooker.
I’ve been making Chef John’s starter and bread for many months now. It hasn’t always been easy for me, but I love it. It hasn’t gotten to the point that I have my system though.
This was my first attempt at Sourdough bread. We escaped California to Tennessee and miss the San Francisco (SF) Sourdough bread. After a failed attempt to make SF starter. I bought a live starter and brought it up many days. I looked for simple instructions. It did not come to room temp after the refrigerator, so I put it on low in the oven for an hour, then baked it. Taste is better then local sourdough. The crust is very tough. This was a 90% success for my first attempt. Understandable instructions. Now to get back to the SF starter and try again. Thanks, James
Super easy. The hardest part is timing your starter to be ready when you are! I have made it twice now, and both loaves came out perfectly, nice and “sour” and with big airy pockets in the bread. I made the recipe as is, but divided the dough into two bannetons, and baked one the following day, with spectacular results. I also sprinkled a bit of coarse sea salt on the second loaf, prior to baking, and was pleased with the end product.