A perfectly crispy crust that almost splinters when I cut through it. The smell of freshly baked, warm bread, smells completely different depending on which types of flour I use. An airy crumb that is slightly chewy when I bite into it.

The joys of home-baked and perfectly warm bread are many! I bake all our bread myself, and it doesn’t matter if it’s airy sourdough buns, soft yeast buns or sweet chocolate buns, the joy is always the same. Home-baked bread can do something very special, and we really appreciate it at home.

That’s why I also love experimenting with bread baking. At the moment, I spend quite a lot of time practising shaping and slicing the loaves so that they turn out nice and rise nicely when they land on my baking tray in the oven. I have tried to divide the recipe into steps so that it is easier to read and understand. But don’t be intimidated – even though there are quite a few steps, the working time is not that great, and the joy when you stand with your own, freshly baked sourdough bread makes it so worth it!

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You will need this:

Pre-Dough:

24 g sourdough Mix
48 g coarse island wheat
31 g room temperature water

Dough:

475 g wheat flour
10 g malt flour
435 g coarse island wheat
780 g lukewarm water (around 30 degrees)
20 g of salt
104 g predough
2 pcs. raising basket – I use a round raising basket and an oval raising basket

Dough cutter (small, sharp knife)

How to bake sourdough wheat bread:

I have divided the recipe into steps so that it is easier to read and understand. Don’t be intimidated by the many points – the bread doesn’t require that much work time. I’ve listed the times for you to use as a guide so you don’t end up shaping bread in the middle of the night.

Step 1:

5 half an hour before you make the dough, mix the pre-dough together. I did it at 9 in the morning. Stir the three ingredients together, cover the dough with a lid or cling film and leave it at room temperature.

Step 2:

5 1/2 hours later (at 14.30 at my place) stir in 730 g of water (keep 50 g of water for later) and flour well together for autolysis. All the flour must be stirred in. Cover it and place it together with the pre-dough. I use these buckets to keep my dough in – they are easy to work in and I can see if the dough rises and becomes airy.

Step 3:

At 16. Take 30 g of the excess water and use it to mix the pre-dough and the autolyzed dough together. Knead the dough together for 5 minutes – I show in this video how I knead the dough. Put it back in a bowl and let it rest for 5 minutes. Use the least amount of water – if the dough is not too wet – to get the salt into the dough. The dough will separate, but quickly come back together when you start kneading it. Knead the dough for a further 3-4 minutes until the dough becomes airy and creates a strong gluten network so that the dough can more or less keep its shape on the kitchen table.

Place the dough in a bowl greased with a little oil. Here the dough must rise.

Step 4:

Let the dough rise for 4 hours at room temperature of around 24-26 degrees. Make 5 folds on the dough. Fold after ½, 1½, 2, 2½ and 3 hours.

Step 5:

Divide the dough into two equal parts of 900 g. Form the dough lightly into a ball – cover it with a damp tea towel. Let it rest for 30 minutes.

Step 6:

Shape the dough into a round or rectangular loaf – or the shape your breadbasket is in. I use a round breadbasket and an oval breadbasket. Put a linen cloth in your rising basket and sprinkle with half rice flour/half wheat flour. Put the loaves in the rising basket and put a bag around each rising basket. Put the loaves in the fridge until the next day.

Step 7:

Put a baking tray in your oven and turn on the oven at the highest temperature over/under heat. Let the baking steel heat up for a little over an hour. Turn the loaves out and cut them – you can see a video of how I cut a loaf right here. Bake the loaves at 250 degrees for approx. 20 minutes. Turn the oven down to 230 degrees and bake the loaves for a further 25-30 minutes.

Do you know the malt bread? The classic malt bread consists of rye bread and French bread. One could be tempted to call this sourdough bread a modern marbled malt bread. The dark malt flour leads the mind and the taste buds to rye bread – and together with the classic wheat dough, we get the most delicious mouthful.

The marbled sourdough bread is Ellinor’s favourite. She asks for it often. I like to bake it. With each slice, the bread changes its look. I’ll be happy to look at it. It’s equally fascinating every time. Each and every loaf is unique, and I like that. Exactly as sourdough bread should be.

Have you yet to make your own sourdough? Or are you finding it difficult to be successful with your sourdough baking? Then you will learn everything in my book Sourdough – you will find it right here.

You will need that

Sourdough

50 g ripe sourdough
50 g water, 29 degrees
50 g fine wheat flour

Light dough

170 g of water, 29 degrees
25 g whole wheat flour
25 g stone-ground, sifted wheat flour
200 g wheat flour
50 g sourdough
7 g of salt
25 g of water

Dark dough

170 g of water, 29 degrees
25 g coarse island wheat flour
25 g stone-ground, sifted wheat flour
20 g dark malt flour
180 g wheat flour
50 g sourdough mix
7 g of salt
20 g water (slightly less water is used in the dark dough, as the malt flour cannot absorb the same amount of liquid)

Other than that:

Three bamboo buckets, a bit of olive oil to grease the buckets with, 1 proofing basket – I use an oval but you can use any shape you prefer, rice flour, a dough spatula, a dough cutter, your favourite baking equipment – I bake my sourdough bread in my Challenger Bread Pan.

Here’s how you do it

First, a small review of the bread and the process before you get started. You must make two different doughs in each bucket. One light. One dark. At the end of the rising, the dough is gathered and folded. This creates the marbled effect in the dough.

The dough is well hydrated. If you find that your dough already feels very wet before adding extra water, or if you are new to sourdough baking so you are still practising working and shaping the doughs, do not add the extra 20-25 g of water to the doughs. You will still get a nice loaf of bread.

Feed your sourdough. Leave it with the lid on tightly at room temperature until it has risen to approximately double in size and is ready to bake.

Find two buckets at the same time. I work with my dough in bamboo buckets. Put water and flour for the two doughs in separate buckets. Stir water and flour together – it’s easiest to do with your hands until there is no more dry flour. Place lids on the buckets. Leave the dough to autolyse while your sourdough develops and becomes ready to bake.

Add sourdough to the dough. Work the sourdough into the dough. Knead the dough for a minute or two by lifting the dough off the sides of the bowl with your hand. Let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes. Add salt and extra water. Work the salt and water into the dough by kneading the dough again for a few minutes. When the dough is smooth and cohesive, the lids are put on and the dough is allowed to rest.

The dough must then be folded 3-4 times. Fold at 20-30 minute intervals. Before the last two folds, place the dark dough over the light dough. The dough is then folded. When the dough has risen by approximately 30-40% (it typically takes 3-4 hours, but it depends on the activity of your sourdough and the temperature of the dough), turn the dough out onto a table NOT sprinkled with flour.

Preshape the dough by lightly stretching it into a ball. Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes until it has a light film on the surface – this makes the dough easier to work with when it needs to be turned around and shaped.

While the dough is resting, sprinkle the proofing basket with a light layer of rice flour. Sprinkle the table and the dough with a little wheat flour. Turn the dough around and shape the dough into your desired bread shape that fits your rising basket. Place the bread in the rising basket. Cover with a cloth and let the bread rise in the fridge until the next day.

The next day, your baking equipment is heated in the oven to 250 degrees. I use hot air when I bake the bread closed in a pan. If you bake the bread freely on a baking tray, you must use above/below heat. Let the oven and your baking equipment heat up for 45-60 minutes. Take out your baking equipment (in my case a Challenger Bread Pan), carefully turn the dough into the pan (the dough is taken directly from the fridge), cut the desired pattern with a pastry cutter, put the lid on and put the dough in the oven.

Turn the temperature down to 200 degrees and bake the bread with the lid on for 20 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for another 10-15 minutes at 260 degrees. If you want a thick crust on your bread, you can bake the bread at temperatures lower than 260 degrees for a longer time. Cool on a wire rack and enjoy.