Step 1

Begin by feeding your sourdough starter. I normally do this at lunchtime so it's ready to use in the early evening because I mix up my dough 2 hours before bedtime. Place 100g. sourdough starter in a jar with 100g. filtered water and 100g. unbleached flour. Mix well and allow to sit loosely covered for 6-8 hours, until it is doubled in size.

Step 2

About 2 hours before bed, mix all the ingredients (flour, water, starter, and salt) in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Oftentimes you won't be able to incorporate all the flour into the dough, so use your hands to work the flour in.

Step 3

Cover the dough and allow it to rise for 30 min. Then uncover it and do a series of "stretch and folds" by grabbing the dough, stretching it up and folding it over. Turn the dough 1/4 turn and repeat. Do this 4-8 times until the dough is too tight to stretch. Cover the dough with plastic wrap.Repeat this process every 30 minutes for 2 hours, or a total of 4 times.

Step 4

After the final stretch and fold, cover the dough with plastic wrap and allow to rise overnight.

Step 5

When you first wake up, you'll want to shape your loaves. Dump the dough out onto the counter and divide it in about half. On one half of the dough, bring all four sides into the middle. Then flip it upside down and begin gently pulling it toward yourself. Give it a quarter turn and do it again until it starts to get a nice taught top. Once it reaches this point, you can line a mixing bowl with a tea bowl and generously flour the tea towel. I try to make sure I use a tea towel with a more narrow bottom. It makes for a taller loaf that way. Flip the loaf upside down into the bowl so the pretty, taught top is on the bottom of the bowl. That will be the top of your bread when you bake it!Alternately, you can use a banneton. I've used them with the fabric inside and then just covered it with plastic wrap. I've also removed the liner and floured the surface of the banneton and then used the liner to cover it. It gives a really cool circular design to the top of the bread that way.You absolutely do not need a banneton, but lots of people like to use them!

Step 6

There are two ways you can do the second rise. Either way, you take the bowl with the dough and cover it up with the rest of the tea towel and let it rise.Bake ImmediatelyThe first thing you can do is to bake it right away. If you do it this way, after you cover the bread, set it on the stove and preheat the oven to 450 degrees with your cast iron dutch oven inside it. After at least 1 hour, but as much as 2-3 hours later, you can bake it using the instructions below.Refrigerate and bake in the next 1-3 daysAnother way you can do it - and the way I prefer to do it - is to cover the loaf with the tea towel and pop it into the fridge. Let it sit there for 1-3 days and bake it whenever you'd like in that time period. When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 450 degrees with the cast iron dutch oven inside it. Once it has been preheating for about an hour, take the dough out of the fridge and follow the baking instructions below.

Step 7

When you're ready to bake the sourdough, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Put the cast iron dutch oven into the oven while it's preheating. Allow it to heat for about an hour before you bake your bread.Rip a piece of parchment paper a little larger than your loaf of bread.  This is the brand I use. Dump the loaf of sourdough out onto the parchment paper. The part that was in the bottom of the bowl is now the top of the loaf.Use a very sharp knife or a lame to score the dough. You can just make a slash in the bread or you can practice making fancy designs in it. It tastes the same either way!Once it's slashed, lift the parchment paper and gently set the dough and parchment inside the dutch oven. Put the lid on quickly and let it cook for 20 minutes. After the 20 minutes is up, take off the lid and cook for another 10-15 minutes. I usually cook for 10 but my brother in law loves the color to be deeper and lets his go longer. There's no right way to do it. Just let it cook until it is the color you like to see.Take it out of the oven and set it on a cooling rack. Resist the urge to cut it until it's cooled. If you cut it while it's still hot, it can make the inside of the loaf gummy. People don't realized that all that steam trapped inside keeps cooking the dough for a while.