Sour Dough Bread

This is good stuff!

There is nothing better than fresh bread cooking in the oven.  The aroma will drive you crazy.  I love making this sour dough bread.  It taste great  and  makes your kitchen smell so good.    The first time I made it I also baked a ham .  When I took this bread out of the oven I could not resist putting mayonnaise on the fresh hot bread along with a piece of baked ham.  It was heaven.  I ate the whole loaf!!!

I have been making this for years.  But it is addictive so I can’t make it every week like I did when The Athlete was in high school. It’s one of those foods that goes straight to your hips.  Now it only shows up for special occasions .   Make this and give it to your friends.     They are going to love you!!!

Sour Dough Starter

  • 1 cup warm water
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 pkg. yeast
  • 3 T of potato flakes (level spoon)

Place the starter in a glass jar.  Do not use metal and stir with a wooden spoon.  Leave the mixture on the counter for 3 days.  Feed the starter and let it sit on the counter for another 8 hours.   It is going to bubble.  Below is the food for the starter.  After 8 hours refrigerate for 3-5 days.  Now you are ready to feed again and make bread.

In the morning take out the starter and feed it and sit on the counter.  You will be ready to make your bread in the evening.  Here’s what you add each time you feed this hungry little thing.  This starter can  be fed every day, but has to be fed at least once every 10 days to keep it from dying.  Another note :  Don’t keep alot of starter.  It will be too weak to rise.  Only keep 2-3 cups and give the other away to friends or pour it out. 

Food for the starter:

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 3 T potato flakes
  • 1 cup warm water

In the evening make the dough and let it rise overnight.  I have halved the original recipe so that I could use my bread machine .  The next morning I knead the dough, put it in pans to rise and bake it that evening.   Feel free to double it and make three large loaves of bread. 

Here is the recipe for the dough:

  • 3 1/2 cups bread flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 3/4 t salt
  • 1/2 starter ( stir it up to get some of the potato flakes)
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 3/4 cup warm water

Sometimes I will cheat and add 1/2 t of yeast.  Why?   The starter is ornery.  Sometimes it does not act right.  If the temperature is too cool it will not rise like it should.  In the summer it does much better.  

liquid in first then dry ingredients

 

I use the dough cycle on my machine and let it knead for 5-8 min.  Let it rise 4 – 8 hours until double in size.  Punch down dough.  Knead lightly for about  5 minutes on a floured board.  You will have to add in extra flour.  Dough will be sticky. 

This is after about 8 minutes in the bread machine.

Overnight it has doubled

Knead dough for about 4 minutes

Divided dough into four equal pieces

Place into 4 greased pans

Dough in pans

Doubled in size

Divide the dough into four pieces.  Place in small greased bread pans. Let the dough rise in the pans until doubled.  I use the proofing cycle on my oven and it will take about 4-5 hours. 

 Bake at 325 degrees for about 20 – 25 minutes.  Butter the top and cool on a cooling rack.  This bread freezes well.  But with bread this good mine rarely gets to the freezer.

Happy cooking,

The Teacher Cooks

38 Comments

Filed under Bread, Cooking, Recipes, Sour Dough Starter

38 responses to “Sour Dough Bread

  1. wow yummy!
    check out my food blog and tell me what you think:
    http://thegodscake.wordpress.com

    Michael

  2. have you named your starter? you must name your starter! after all, it’s practically a member of your family. 🙂

  3. Jessica Noble

    I like how fluffy the bread looks. It would make an excellent bread for turkey sandwhichesd:).

  4. Ana

    Looks really yummy!

  5. Uniqua Dortch

    I’m a huge fan of bread, so i can say that this looks like a great canidate for my mouth. The texture of the bread looks very soft, I wouldn’t mind having a slice with butter

  6. Carly Hart

    This looks really yummy! You make such a complicated recipe seem simple!

  7. Ashley Kendrick

    It looks really good. I didn’t know you had to leave the mixture on the counter for 3 days. That seems long

  8. Taylor Roddy

    i love this kind of bread. looks like it would be something good to use as like an appitizer or something. thanks for posting. Im deff going to make this at home, the ingredients look pretty easy.

  9. ariel smith

    this bread looks so yummy : )

  10. Ashley Maryniak

    I never tried sour dough bread, but it looks delicious and easy to make.

  11. Jennifer Pham

    This sour dough bread seems easy enough to make. That would be a good thing to make in class if we had the time.

  12. Savannah Cole

    I’ve never had this kind of bread, but i would love to try it 🙂

  13. I DID NOT KNOW THAT YOU HAVE TO WARM THE WATER UP BEFORE YOU PUT IT IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂

  14. Brittany F

    Im not a big fan of sour dough but thisz sooooo good

  15. the bread looks really yummy and soft !

  16. Taylor D

    sour dough bread is soooooo good!

  17. brandy adams

    wow!! it sounds weird…. i bet it tastes ggod though.

  18. Brooke Maryniak

    This sounds great! I wish it took a shorter time to make though.

  19. Yesica Melchor

    I love this bread!..I just have one question: Doesn’t the bread harden when it’s frozen?

  20. Leslie Stewart

    I have never had this but looks good if it is fresh.

  21. blakely

    this looks good i dont think ive ever had it before.

  22. Erin

    3 days is a long time; but it seems fun to make

  23. I can practically smell that photo! Nothing better than the fragrance of bread baking.
    Great recipe and I love your detailed explanations.

  24. dakota clayton

    sounds good

  25. Becca

    Sour dough bread is one of my favorite foods to go along with a bowl of soup! I’ll have to try this at home.

  26. Brooke Davidson

    The bread looks very fluffy. I don’t really like sour dough bread though.

  27. ashley

    this looks good, i would love to try this

  28. Allie

    Oh yum! I love sour dough bread. I’m definitely going to bake this recipe at home!

  29. Elizabeth

    Mmm, i love eating bread with some butter. This looks good to try it with.

  30. Parker

    I love sour dough! Maybe can give bakeing it a shot.

  31. hanna

    this looks really good!

  32. imari

    this looks like the bread you can buy in stores.

  33. Shane Davis

    3 days is a long time just to wait for some bread but it looks worth the wait

  34. Isata

    i love bread!! so i might have to make this.

  35. zuleima

    delicious mm k is watched and it sees that he is something very simple to do aha

  36. kenny

    the bread looks very delicous

  37. Lindsey Hale

    This seems pretty simple to make but although its simple i’m oretty sure it tastes really good.

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