Authentic Sourdough Bread

[lottie]

Authentic Sourdough Bread

Ingredients:
2.5 cups freshly fed sourdough starter
1.5 cups warm water (think baby bottle temperature)
4 Tablespoons oil (avocado or olive oil work fabulously)
2 teaspoons salt
6 1/2 cups flour - *it will depend on how dough forms while kneading. Mine take 5 3/4 cups flour. Yours may need more.

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in your mixer, add flour in one cup at a time. You'll want to keep adding flour until your dough is beginning to form a ball, is slightly sticky to the touch, then stop. Mix on medium-low for a few minutes, then mix on medium-high for 10-15 minutes. At this point your dough should be able to be pinched without it sticking to your fingers, but still feel slightly wet. If it's sticking to your fingers, turn mixer back on, add a bit of flour at a time until it's not sticky, but not dry either.

Oil your hands well, pull the dough out of the mixing bowl. Oil the surface you place the dough on. Pinch the dough into 2-3 parts. Form each part into one loaf a separate loaf, place in a greased 9x5 inch bread pan. Slightly oil the top, cover with a towel and let rise overnight depending on the temperature of your home. To speed the proofing you can cover with plastic wrap and set the loaves in a draft free, very warm spot in the house (80+ degrees). They will double in size within hours. If your oven will let you set the temp around 100*F you can use that to proof your loaves too.

Once the dough has risen, preheat oven to 350F. Bake the loaves for 45 minutes. Let the loaves cool slightly, then dump onto a cooling rack allowing them to cool completely. Don’t leave in the pans to cool. I made that mistake and the loaves were soggy from the condensation that collects.

Slice it up and enjoy!

Enjoy!

Notes:
Mixer - I have found that a Bosch Mixer is the best for making bread. Other mixers' motors aren't as strong and tend to burn out. My old Kitchen Center came close, but man, the Bosch is an amazing beast.

You can knead this by hand, however I haven't done it, so I can't give any pointers.

Bread machine is unknown. I don’t have one. Sourdough tends to take longer to rise. So perhaps you could mix it up in the bread machine, let it rise until at least double, then bake it. My old machine had settings that allowed me to mix and bake separately. Give it a whirl.

— this is from Instagram AmbersKitchen, who got it from another person. Adapted a bit from personal experience.