Recipes that require the addition of a pre- fermentation, also known as a biga, a poolish or a starter.

Easy No-Knead Sourdough

Welcome to another step-by-step recipe from BreadClub20. Why not drop by our main Facebook page by clicking here…. If you like what you see and enjoy the recipe, we hope you join us by ‘Liking’ and ‘Subscribing’.

How easy can an easy sourdough be?

How little kneading does a no-knead sourdough loaf require?

Can we combine ‘easy’ with ‘no-knead’ and create same-day sourdough with great taste and texture.

The answer is ‘yes!’

Here it is. Click to read more…

Pain Couronne de Français

You’ll find many recipes for seasonal Couronne that are iced and have inclusions that may well include fruit, spices and nuts.

Click to read more…

Open Crumb Sourdough

Today, we’re going to build a sourdough with a fine open crumb. For this we need two things: Click to read more..

Pain au Levain – BC20 style

Here’s a quandary. When is a sourdough not a sourdough?

We’re used to baking sourdough over a three-day period.

Day One is prepping the sourdough ‘starter’ or levain. Click to read more…

Simply Sourdough – BC20 style

Today is all about Simply Sourdough…not ‘Simple Sourdough’. Although sourdough is ‘simple’ in terms of its formula, it takes a bit of practice, knowledge and understanding before you have one of those ‘Eureka’ moments and you begin to understand how all the facets of sourdough baking integrate and make sense. Click to read more…

The Scrapings Method

Making Sourdough using the ‘Scrapings Method”

In 1576, Richard Edwardes, a playwright, lyricist, and, supposedly, an illegitimate son of Henry VIII, published The Paradise of Dainty Devices.

It was here we have the first recorded version of For want is nexte to waste and shame doeth synne ensue”.

Or, as we know it today – Waste not, want not. Click to read more…

Respectus Panis

One of our bakers here at BreadClub20 introduced me to the technique of Respectus Panis. Yes, it’s a technique rather than a bake, but it can be applied to croissants, baguettes and brioche as easily as it can be applied to sourdough and other breads. Click to read more…

Ukrainian Black Bread

I have to thank Dave Skolosdra, one of the BreadClub20 bakers for this recipe. I hope I’ve done it justice.

Honoré de Balzac, the famous French novelist and playwright was very fond of Ukrainian black bread. He was probably one of the first who wrote ‘food erotica’, taking several pages to describe lingering over a long meal.

In 1832, he fell in love with his pen-pal, Ewelina Hańska, a reader from Kiev. When her husband died in 1841, Balzac travelled to Ukraine, courted and married her.

He documents 77 different types of Ukrainian breads, including this famous black bread, ideally accompanied by Polish sausage, liver pâté and apple sauerkraut.

Nasolodzhuvatysya! Click to read more…

Lake Champlain Sourdough

Lake Champlain – in Vermont, on the borders of the United States and Canada is home to Trevor J. Wilson and the Lake Champlain Sourdough.

It’s a two-day sourdough process, starting both the mixing and the levain the day before you intend to bake, but separately. Click to read more…

Bake-a-Day Sourdough

I’m on a recruitment drive – to try and persuade all those of you for whom sourdough looks cumbersome, time-consuming and feel it needs to be planned like a military exercise, that it’s actually not. Not at all.

I’ve baked sourdough for years and I’ve baked yeasted breads for decades. Lately, I’ve been on a ‘bit of a mission’ to remove the mystique of sourdough to enable every home baker to produce tasty sourdough with the minimum of fuss and equipment; but with the maximum taste and all within everybody’s daily schedule. Click to read more…

Lace Sourdough

Somewhere between a ciabatta and a high-hydration sourdough lies the Lace Sourdough. At 73% hydration, it’s not a ridiculously highly-hydrated sourdough, but there is enough work in it to generate the lacy open-texture of a loaf that you’d think was a good deal more highly-hydrated than it is. Click to read more…

Sourdough – 81% hydration with time stamps

BreadClub20….the award-winning site for Happy Bakers.

2021 : World Bread Awards : Winner – Wales

Working towards a more open crumb usually means dealing with a slightly higher level of hydration in your dough. However, high hydration doughs are not something to be feared. Not if you approach them the right way.

Today’s Sourdough is based on a recipe from Chicago. It requires a dough of 81% hydration.

This is how we achieve this level of hydration: click to read more…

Weekday Sourdough

BreadClub20….the award-winning site for Happy Bakers.

2021 : World Bread Awards : Winner – Wales

There are days when you want to try out a new sourdough recipe. There are days when you have the time to sit down and improvise; tweaking your own recipe in the search for that ‘nirvana’ of the bread world. Click to read more….

Southern Sourdough

BreadClub20….the award-winning site for Happy Bakers.

2021 : World Bread Awards : Winner – Wales

Some of you may well be familiar with ‘Henry’s Bread Kitchen’. Henry Hunter is an artisan bread maker who runs a business in Blythewood, South Carolina. Click to read more…

Artisan Sourdough

BreadClub20….the award-winning site for Happy Bakers.

2021 : World Bread Awards : Winner – Wales

Today, we’re going to make high hydration (81%) sourdough loaves and bake them in a Dutch Oven. If you haven’t got a Dutch Oven, here are some alternatives:

(i) a large round or oval cast iron casserole with lid Click to read more..

Jim Lahey’s Artisan Sourdough

BreadClub20….the award-winning site for Happy Bakers.

2021 : World Bread Awards : Winner – Wales

I first made Jim Lahey’s No-knead Artisan Bread a couple of years ago, and, to be honest, I wasn’t happy with the outcome. I’ve had a long think, a bit of a scribble and I’m replacing the original step-by-step guide on BreadClub20 with the benefit of hindsight and contemplation.

Or perhaps, I just really screwed up the last time and want to make amends…..

Jim Lahey is the owner of Sullivan Street Bakery (https://www.sullivanstreetbakery.com/) with branches in Hell’s Kitchen, Soho (US), Chelsea (US) and Miami. The ‘No-Knead’ recipe was created to help home bakers produce bakery-standard artisan bread from their own kitchens. Click to read more…

Pane di Como

BreadClub20….the award-winning site for Happy Bakers.

2021 : World Bread Awards : Winner – Wales

Welcome to another step-by-step recipe from BreadClub20. Why not drop by our main Facebook page by clicking here…. If you like what you see and enjoy the recipe, we hope you go on to join us by ‘Liking’ and ‘Subscribing’.Como bread of Pane di Como is traditional white bread from the area surrounding Lake Como in Northern Italy.
Sometimes referred to as ‘pan de Comm’, it is the oldest bread produced in the region and dates back to the 900s AD. It’s not particularly difficult nor unusual in the way that it is made, but it’s prized and loved throughout the area. Click to read more..

Éric Kayser’s French Baguettes

Éric Kayser was born in October 1964 in Lure in the Haute-Saône region of eastern France. His great-grandfather, grand father and father were traditional French bakers in Lorraine. He served his apprenticeship in Fréjus on the Côte d’Azur.

His first bakery was at 8 rue Monge in Paris. Today, there are over 200 Maison Kayser worldwide and 28 in Paris alone. Sadly, in 2020 the 16 New York locations closed and filed for bankruptcy. Click to read more…

Sourdough Baguettes – no knead / cold proofing

Welcome to another step-by-step recipe from BreadClub20. Why not drop by our main Facebook page by clicking here…. If you like what you see and enjoy the recipe, we hope you go on to join us by ‘Liking’ and ‘Subscribing’.
Umai Lab on YouTube prepares sourdough baguettes using reverse and coil folding methods and cold proofing. Everything in the preparation at 70% hydration says she shouldn’t achieve such lovely open crumb..and yet she does. Let’s see if it really does work. Click to read more…

Six Seed Sourdough

As my English teacher once said, “Always avoid alliteration”…. (it’s OK, I’ll wait…..)

Six Seed Sourdough.….it’s the sort of bread that Sea Sick Steve should eat…along with his “Southern Biscuits”… (cue the music….) Click to read more….

ǷINTERFYLLEÞ GEBYRMED (OCTOBER SOURDOUGH)

Today we’re going to make þinterfylleþ Gebyrmed.

I can almost hear people saying….why has he called it that?

Well, it’s October and the word þinterfylleþ or Winterfylleth (to give it a modern spelling) is the Anglo Saxon or Old English word for October. Gebyrmed is the Anglo-Saxon word for leavened bread. So þinterfylleþ Gebyrmed is ‘Winter Sourdough’ Click to read more…

Three strand multiseed plait with sourdough starter

Plaited bread occurs in many cuisines. The Swiss claim to have invented it as Zopf is a type of Swiss, Austrian and Bavarian bread that is enriched with milk, eggs and butter into a form of brioche. It is then plaited, baked and traditionally eaten on a Sunday morning. The French call it ‘tresse’ and the Italians call it ‘treccia’.

In Hebrew cuisine, it exists as Challah, a special bread of the Ashkenazi Jews, eaten on Shabbat or at otjer significant Jewish gatherings. Click to read more…

Ciabatta – using Sourdough Starter

I have to thank Dave Skolosdra, from Ashton-under-Lyne, a market town in Tameside, Greater Manchester, for this recipe. Dave is also a baker and subscriber to BreadClub20. Ashton holds a fond memory for me. My father spent his teaching career at the local technical college and I spent a year there in between school and University as part of a ‘agreement’ with him that I’d continue my studies while I was learning the Chorleywood process at the Sunblest bakery in nearby Stockport. However, I’m afraid that I was far more percipient to flour, water, yeast and salt than I ever was to revisiting the European Revolutions of 1848….Click to read more….

Sourdough – using starter for soft sandwich rolls

We’ve all been there. We’ve taken a portion of sourdough starter from the ‘motherlode’ in the refrigerator and refreshed it the night before baking. Click to read more…

Sourdough – Handling 85% Hydration

Welcome to another step-by-step recipe from BreadClub20. Why not drop by our main Facebook page by clicking here…. If you like what you see and enjoy the recipe, we hope you go on to join us by ‘Liking’ and ‘Subscribing’.Today, we’re moving away from one of my own set recipes. Instead, we’re going to work through a recipe and process that have been put online via YouTube by ‘Autumn Kitchen’ (Chiew See, a home baker in Malaysia) Click to read more…..

Baguettes using sourdough discard

Too much sourdough discard lying around the fridge? Not sure what to do with it.

You have lots of choices before you condemn it to the wormery…although I dare say the worms would be very grateful. Click to read more…..

Sourdough – A Classiclally Straightforward, Super And Simple Step-by-Step Approach to Superior Sourdough

Question?

Do you want to make sourdough that looks great, is simple to make, tastes like classic sourdough and is super simple?

Fancy a step-by-step approach? Then you’ve stopped by just at the right time. Click to read more…

Hot Dog Rolls in Silicone Moulds (Sourdough discard)

I’ve bought hot dog moulds. I’ve been after them for a while and saw them advertised on Ebay. There are lots of very small moulds for madeleines and the like, but very few that are large enough for hot dogs. Here are the ones I’ve bought….. Click to read more…

Classic Sourdough by Rusch and Johnson

400, North 2nd Street in Fairfield, Iowa, is the home of ‘Breadtopia’ an online thriving community for home bread bakers.

Owned and run by Eric Rusch and family, Breadtopia offers an outlet for all manner of bread-related goods. They also offer online tutorials and a useful support for inexperienced and expert bakers alike. Click to read more…

Sourdough – a step-by-step approach to perfect sourdough with explanations for the inexperienced baker.

I was out shopping the other day and bumped into a friend who has been following BreadClub20 since the early days. She said, ‘I wish I could make a sourdough loaf’…

So, this is for you, Sioned……

There are so, so many recipes for sourdough….some people might say ‘you can never have enough‘ whilst others might say ‘which one do I choose?’ Click to read more….

Sourdough – the Coil Fold method

Welcome to BreadClub20‘s recipe for Sourdough using a Coil Fold Method. It’s been adapted from a recipe of Joel Mielle, a trained French Chef and Australian restaurant owner and social media ‘influencer’.

It’s a bit of a trial….for a number of reasons…

The difference between this and other sourdough recipes that you’ll find at www.breadclub20.com or on our Facebook Group page is that this method uses Coil Folding throughout the Bulk Fermentation stage; finishing off with lamination as a pre-shaping technique. It breaks a lot of my ‘rules’ : allowing bulk fermentation to finish without intrusion, not measuring bulk fermentation, laminating at the end of the process rather than at an earlier stage, proofing before retardation… Click here to read more….

Sourdough – using discard for a sandwich loaf

We’ve all been there. We’ve taken a portion of sourdough starter from the ‘motherlode’ in the refrigerator and refreshed it the night before baking.

The following day, we’ve used what we need and then we’ve put the rest back in the fridge for ‘another day’…and slowly we begin to realise that there’s a growing volume of discarded starter and we really can’t see it being used… Click to read more…

Sourdough from ‘Bont’ – ‘Surdoes Bont‘

This is my Surdoes Bont – Sourdough from Bontuchel. It’s become my ‘go-to’ recipe. I’ve arrived at this after years of experimentation, a considerable early failure rate but also some very pleasant surprises.

Perhaps I should explain where the name comes from. I live in a small village in North Wales that takes its name from a bridge at the end of the lane. This is the bont. Surdoes is Welsh for sourdough. So Surdoes Bont. But, if you weren’t Welsh and you were looking for it in a list, you could be looking beyond the limits of your patience. So, I’ve listed it under ‘Sourdough from Bontuchel. Click to read more….

Tartine Sourdough with overnight retardation

If you check out the recipe at www.breadclub20.com for Sourdough – Tartine style (click here), you’ll find a detailed recipe for Tartine bread – a recipe directly from the Tartine Bakery at 600 Guerrero Street, San Francisco, home to Chad Robertson and his very own Tartine sourdough, originally baked in a wood-fired brick oven. (Click to read more…)

Sourdough – 80% hydration

I had a message recently on the BreadClub20 Facebook group page (click HERE) from a new baker who asked, “What is all this discussion about ‘holes’ in sourdough? Why do people want holes?”

I thought, what a good question! Sometimes, it must seem to new bakers that we are more concerned with how bread looks, rather than how it tastes. We seem to have elevated the humble loaf into being an art form; rather than a staple part of our diet. In the way as nouveau cuisine presented us with plates containing hardly enough food to sustain a budgie and introduced such dreadful terms as jus, so, bread aficionados discuss shape and colour, scoring and rise. Woe betide anyone who blunders in with ‘What’s it like with a bowl of soup?’ Click to read more

Sourdough – using an 1898 starter born of the Klondike Gold Rush

A week or so ago, I received a dehydrated powdered sourdough starter. It had travelled 4111 miles to North Wales from Whitehorse in the Yukon area of Canada. I’d like to think that it may well have been handled, as it left Canada, by one of the half a million Welsh descendents who now live there. Click to read more….

Sourdough Review – Mix, Wait and Bake

This is part of a series of ‘worked examples’. I’ve taken a particularly interesting recipe, either from YouTube© or from a printed source and worked it through. Hopefully, you’ll see any ‘pressure points’ where I’ve had to consider alternatives or make some sort of allowance for factors that were not immediately apparent.

This is Sourdough – Mix, Wait and Bake. Three simple steps to great sourdough.

I have to thank Michiel Leijnse for this recipe. I want to sincerely thank him.

Why? Because he’s made me stop and think. Click to read more….

Sourdough Review – the no-fuss, no- knead approach.

This is part of a series of ‘worked examples’. I’ve taken a particularly interesting recipe, either from YouTube© or from a printed source and worked it through. You may see a few ‘pressure points’ where I’ve had to consider alternatives or make some sort of allowance for factors that were not immediately apparent.

‘Culinary Exploration’ is a Facebook page and YouTube© channel that celebrates good food and ‘banging’ recipes. One such is the ‘No-knead’ Basic Sourdough. Click to read more….

A Sourdough Experiment – Michel’s 42 word recipe

I hope that Michel (I’ve changed his name for personal security reasons), who hails from the Netherlands, won’t be offended if I refer to him as something of a Sourdough Anarchist. It’s actually meant as a compliment.

I first came across Michel on Facebook. There’s a Facebook group – ‘Bread Baking Science’ that could easily terrify the new baker or the faint of heart. It’s ‘Science’ with a very large ‘S’. However, Michel has been on a mission to demystify the art of sourdough. Click to read more…

Jack’s Sourdough

‘Bake with Jack’ is one of my favourite YouTube channels. Jack Sturgess, Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch Bread Expert, is a professional chef, who has turned his talents to breadmaking, education and demonstration.

I love his simple no-nonsense approach and the fact that he demystifies the whole process of breadmaking. After all, we’ve been baking bread for 10,000 years. We must have got something right!

This recipe is based on Jack’s all-in-one sourdough recipe. He incorporates a slightly different approach at times, but for good reason and, if anything, he makes life a little less complicated. I’ve kept closely to the original recipe, just added a few of my own notes here and there. Click to read more…..

The Basic Recipe

We’re lucky in Wales. The water is very soft and is ideal for bread making. I’ve been buying my flour from Albion Mills in Stockport since this March when flour was in short supply. Nestrop’s Empress is a great quality flour and at £1.06 a kilo (www.amazon.co.uk) it’s a good buy. Click to read more….

Sourdough – an overnight bake

Sometimes, one way to make sourdough…is slowly.

This week’s recipe is straightforward enough – it just takes time and requires a little space in your refrigerator.

Because the work is minimal and there is very little interference with the dough while it’s working its magic, the ‘holes’ that make sourdough distinctive tend to be on the small side. However, the taste is everybit as good as any other sourdough. Click to read more….

Chilling the dough makes it easier to handle.

As you’re probably aware, there are many sourdough recipes as there are patterns to decorate their crusts.

The key is to find a recipe that rewards you with bread that is impressive to look at and tastes wonderful.

This soon becomes your staple sourdough loaf. Click to read more…

Easy overnight sourdough

My sourdough regime tends to follow the same pattern. The day before Bread Day I prepare my starter. On Bread Day morning, I mix starter, flour, water and salt together and knead into a dough.

Then the waiting begins. The timer is set for 3 hours. I go off to do other things: have breakfast, read The Guardian, annoy people on Facebook….. Click to read more…

Easy no-knead sourdough

If you’re new to sourdough, then kneading can often be a little daunting. There’s nothing worse than ending up with a sticky mess halfway up your arm, all over the worktop and up the wall. It seems to transfer to everything you’ve touched and many things you haven’t!

It’s enough to put anyone off baking their own bread. And it often does…..

What you need (if you’ll pardon the pun) is a recipe that doesn’t require you to do too much to the dough and yet still end up with a loaf of which you can be proud. Click to read more….

Freeform on a sheet of Cordierite

During the summer lockdown, my circular pizza stone cracked. I’d had it for a long time and knew that ceramic was never going to last a lifetime.

Looking around for a replacement, I realised that pizza stones or ‘baking stones’ as they’re often referred to, are made from a wide range of materials: ceramic, stone, cast iron, clay and cordierite. Click to read more….

In a self-styled Dutch oven

It’s Sourdough day again.

Today, I’m using my vesion of a Dutch Oven.

Strictly speaking, a Dutch Oven is a thick-walled cast iron cooking pot with a tight-fitting lid. They’ve been used as cooking pots for hundreds of years. Many cultures have their own versions: In English speaking countries (except for the USA), they’re ‘casserole pots’, In French they’re cocottes. In Japan, they’re tetsunabe; in the Balkans, a sač; In South African, they’re potjiekos; in Spain, a cazuela, and in Australia, a Bedourie oven. Click to read more….

In an oval banneton

This week’s sourdough recipe is how to bake in an oval banneton using a pizza stone in a very hot oven.

“All this equipment,” I hear you say.. “it’s all very niche.”

Believe me, it isn’t. You can adapt and adopt using pieces of equipment you have within your own kitchen…but if you’re going to take sourdough baking seriously, it’s worth a little investment to make the task a little more pleasurable and a lot easier. Click to read more….

Make your own starter….for life…

It’s not wizardry, witchcraft, alchemy or part of the Dark Arts. It’s not sorcery or voodoo, conjuration or sortilege. It’s not wonderworking or thaumaturgy.

But making your own sourdough starter is very rewarding….and so astoundingly simple. Providing you follow the rules and understand a little about what is going on. Click to read more….

Maximising your chance of ‘holes’!

Everybody seems to judge a sourdough loaf by one or more of four attributes.

Does it have…

1. A thick dark crust?

2. An attracive scoring on the top?

3. That distinctive ‘sour’ taste?

4. A sufficiently open crumb – that is to say, lots of holes?

Let’s deal with each of these in turn.

A thick dark crust…Click to read more…

Tartine Sourdough

Tartine Sourdough is reputed to be the most popular artisan sourdough bread in San Francisco. It takes its name from the Tartine Bakery at 600 Guerrero Street, San Francisco, home to Chad Robertson and his very own Tartine sourdough, originally baked in a wood-fired brick oven. Click to read more….

Autolysing your sourdough..

I think it’s time to delve a little deeper into one aspect of home baking that might seem a little ‘niche’ (to use my daughter’s turn of phrase); but, in reality, it isn’t. It’s all about understanding why we do what we do and how, by thinking ahead, we can improve what we make and bake. Click to read more….

When is a ‘starter’ a ‘starter’…?

Baking sourdough always requires the use of a ‘starter’. However, a quick look through any cookery book or a quick search online and you’ll come across other words such as ‘poolish’ or ‘sponge’ or ‘biga’ or ‘pre-ferment’ in recipes where you think you might have been making straightforward sourdough.

So what is the difference? Click to read more…

Wholemeal sourdough with Peanut Butter

A friend posted this bake as a batard, earlier this week. It looked lovely, so this is my take on it.

Sounds like a weird concoction, sourdough and peanut butter, but the combination of strong white and wholemeal flours combined with a sourdough starter and a good ‘dollop’ of peanut butter, produces a unusual bake. The peanut butter accentuates the ‘sourness’ of the sourdough. If you’re a person who likes your sourdough well….sour….then this might be for you. Click to read more….

BreadClub20

The website for BreadClub20 on Facebook

The Sourdough Recipes

Easy No-Knead Sourdough

Pain Couronne de Français

Easy No-Knead Sourdough

Pain Couronne de Français

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