Homemade Sourdough Bread

I started baking my own bread recently. If you have never made and eaten your own baked bread, you do not know what you are missing! It is wonderful! Not only is it delicious, it’s healthier for your family, and it’s much cheaper than buying it at the store. On top of that, it’s really not that hard. So there is no reason not to make your own.

Do you know what’s in your loaf of store bought bread? I bet you can’t even pronounce most of the ingredients (unless of course, you are a science/chemical major). Well, I know whats in my bread. Flour, water, sugar, yeast, salt and sometimes oil. That’s it. Very basic ingredients that you probably already have in your pantry. I also have one other thing that makes my life very easy….a bread machine. So I’m gonna share a bread machine recipe for the easiest, most delicious home made sourdough bread. Okay?

For sourdough bread, you’ll need a sourdough starter. I use this one from cooksrecipes.com. I started my starter about a week ago. I was very careful to do it just as the recipe stated. I even borrowed bottled water from my mom. But then on day two, I accidentally pre-heated my oven. Well, my starter was in my oven! oops! But I got it out and thought for sure it would be ruined, but it was fine. I just stirred it up and put it back in the oven. Then about midweek, I “fed” my starter. I took out 1 cup of the starter and replaced it with 1 cup flour and 1 cup tap water. oops again. The recipe said to use bottled water. But my starter is FINE, even with tap water.

So after my starter fermented (is that what it does?) for a week, I was ready to try out my recipe. If you go back to cooksrecipes.com, you will find a lot of bread machine recipes. And it’s where I got the one for my sourdough bread.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Bread machine

1 1/4 cup sourdough starter

3/4 cup warm water (tap is fine)

4 cups bread flour (I just used regular all purpose flour and it was just fine)

1 3/4 tsp salt

3 tbs granulated sugar

1 3/4 tsp dry active yeast

Here are the ingredients inside my bread machine bowl.  They generally get layered in with the wet stuff first, then dry, and lastly the yeast.

Select your basic bread and crust cycle.  I like lighter crust, so I did a basic bread/light crust cycle.  Generally about 3 hours start to finish, depending on your bread machine.

MMMMMMMM!!!!!!!  Look at that!  It’s risen all the way to the top!  Yikes!

See, it kinda stuck to the top of the glass!  oops! LOL!

Oh yeah, Baby!  Look at that!  Does that not look so divine??  It’s HEAVENLY!

So there you have it.  The most delicious home made sourdough bread EVER!  And it was SO easy.  About 3 1/2 hours (15 mins actually assembling the ingredients).  Nothing to it.  And your house will smell so good, your neighbors will be coming over to see whats cooking!

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