Sourdough bread is a great alternative when wanting a healthier bread. If you haven’t read my article on sourdough bread, you can read it here: A Healthy Bread That Is Good For You! I have always loved an authentic sourdough loaf. A true sourdough loaf is made with wild yeast or a sourdough starter. If you haven’t read my post on how to start a sourdough starter, you can do that here: How To Start Your Own Sourdough Starter. This loaf of bread has 4 ingredients, that is it! It is super easy to make but does take some time to ferment. This dough actually ferments for 19 hours. Don’t let that scare you…the whole process will take you 10 minutes of prep time and the rest of the time the dough just sits there getting better and tastier.
There are several things that you will need to get started. It is a good idea to have a digital scale to measure your ingredients but is not absolutely necessary. I do my best to show you how to utilize what you have in your kitchen so you don’t have to buy any special equipment. I use a dutch oven to cook my bread in. Often times people will cook sourdough in a La Cloche, but I find it just as easy to use a dutch oven. Another item that is often used when cooking sourdough bread is a proofing basket or a round brotform (pictured at bottom of post). Again, I just use what I have in my kitchen. You can make a proofing basket by using a colander lined with a thin towel (not a thick towel). You might want to purchase a Danish dough whisk, but a slotted spoon works as well. See the bottom of this post to see where you can purchase these items. I have pictures showing you all of this. This recipe was modified from Breadtopia, a great website that teaches us all how to make a better loaf of sourdough! So let’s get started.
The first thing you need to do is measure out 350 grams (1 1/2 cup) of filtered water (at room temperature). Place water into a ceramic bowl, not metal. Stir in 3 tablespoons of honey. If using raw honey, melt the honey on low heat until it turns into a liquid.
Add 1/4 cup of sourdough starter (learn how to make your own sourdough starter here) to the water mixture and mix well. Your sourdough starter should look like this.
Add 1/4 cup of this starter to the water mixture and stir well.
In another bowl, measure out 530 grams (about 5 cups fluffed) of 100% whole spelt flour. Add 10 grams (1 1/2 tsp) of unrefined sea salt and stir. Please note, you need to use whole spelt flour, other flours will not work with this recipe.
Mix the flour mixture in with the water mixture. Stir with a slotted spoon until well combined. The dough will be a wet dough.
Cover with plastic and store in a warm place for 1 hour.
After 1 hour, dust your hands and the top of the dough with flour. Pick up the dough and stretch and then fold the dough. Stretch once again in the opposite direction. Place back into the bowl and cover with plastic for another 1/2 hour. After a half hour, do a second stretch and fold in both directions. Put back in the bowl and cover with plastic for another half hour. After a half hour do a final (third) stretch and fold in both directions. Place the dough back into the bowl and cover with plastic and allow it to sit overnight. I usually start this whole process at 3:30 pm and bake it the next morning at 9:30 am.
In the morning you will need a wood cutting board, a colander and light dish towel.
This is what your dough will look like in the morning. Yours might rise a bit more, it all depends on the weather and how warm your kitchen is. It was cooler in my kitchen, so it didn’t rise as much, but don’t let that alarm you, it will still rise as it proofs and cooks.
Flour the cutting board, hands, the dish towel in the colander and the top of the dough with rice flour. Gently scrape the dough out of the bowl and place it onto the cutting board. Pull the sides up and pinch the dough at the top. Place dough into the lined colander and cover with plastic and allow the dough to rise for another hour and a half.
In a 400º-450º F oven(temperature might vary depending on your oven, 450ºF was too hot for me, I cooked mine in a 400º F oven). Preheat a dutch oven with a lid on for the last half hour that the dough is rising. Pull the very hot dutch oven out of the oven and gently transfer the dough into the hot dutch oven by flipping the dough gently out of the colander. Put the lid back on and return to oven and bake for 35 minutes. After 35 minutes remove the lid and allow to bake for 10 additional minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 195º-200º F.
Remove bread from Dutch oven and allow the bread to cool for 1 hour before serving. Serve with some grass fed butter and enjoy!
How To Make A “Real” Sourdough Spelt Loaf
Prep Time: 20 minutes- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 20 pieces 1x
- Category: side dish
- Method: baking
- Cuisine: american
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Pin RecipeDescription
Learn how to make your own sourdough spelt loaf. It really is quite easy!
Ingredients
- 530 grams (5 fluffed cups) spelt flour
- 3 tbsp honey
- 350 grams (1 1/2 cup) water
- 10 grams (1 1/2 tsp) unrefined sea salt
- 1/4 cup sourdough starter, see recipe
Instructions
- See Instructions in this post
Notes
Nutrition Info: Calories: 143.8 Fat: 1.0g Carbohydrates: 28.5g Protein: 4.1g
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 piece
Oh no, I never thought of coconut flour or almond flour…so sorry, I will change that. I would stick to spelt if you can, but you can also switch over to all purpose organic flour if you choose. Sorry about that Angela!
No problem – didn’t even think about how different it is …. I was just SO happy I didn’t already discard the rest of the starter … now that would have been a disaster. 😉
Thanks for the recipe 🙂 I began making a starter two days ago (whole spelt flour + water) but haven’t been adding the daily 1/2 cup of flour… Do you think I should discard it and start again? It has a really strong smell and is quite bubbly – possibly too strong?
I’m just making my second loaf – the first one was really dense, which I put down to measuring the flour in cups, rather than weighing it. It was far too dry and I think that didn’t help the texture. It tasted ok – even my daughter liked it and was disappointed when it had all gone! This time I weighed the flour and the dough is much stickier than before and looks more like your photos. Just got wait for it to prove…
Hi hope you get this before tomorrow:) I don’t have a dutch oven – actually never heard of one!! Can I use a glass pyrex dish instead ?
@Angie Hey Angie,
A dutch oven is usually used to make soups and stews in. Do you have a deep dish that has a lid? It has to have a lid on it and be oven proof.
Can I use sugar instead of honey? I prefer the bees to keep their honey, so use it very sparingly.
@GJArcher yes you can use sugar instead of honey.
Could I use maple syrup also please?
★★★★★
Oh how much I love this recipe! I use a le crueset cast iron pan
I have a clay baker. The instructions for the baker say to soak it in water before using (not sure if this applies to bread making). Do you think that is necessary and should I pre-heat it as you did your dutch oven??
Is rice flour necessary? Can I just dust it with more spelt? What’s the purpose if using rice flour? Thanks!!
So the rice flour acts like Teflon so things do not stick to the flour. Baker’s are known to use a 50% mix of rice/All purpose flour. Ofc you can use any flour, but it might not be as effective.
I just watched breadtopia’s video on baking this recipe. Because it’s a wet dough, they used spelt and then rice flour in the banneton because rice flour isn’t so readily absorbed. If it gets absorbed, it will stick to the banneton!
Yum! I’ve tried this recipe 3 times now, and today’s was the most successful. The first was like a brick, the second really soggy, even though the internal bread temp was fine! I used half wholegrain and half white spelt flour with rye starter and it’s come out really well. I also used spelt flour for dusting and it was absolutely fine. Looking forward to having it with my eggs for breakfast. Thanks for the recipe, glad I persevered!
what is the appropriate size for the dutch oven? is 4L too small?
My starter is at room temp and I was ready to mix up bread this evening, but an appointment came up for early morning and I would not be able to do the final forming and baking until afternoon. What should I do?