Rustic Sourdough bread recipe – easy to make with lievito madre

Think about that lovely bakery where you usually buy your sourdough bread loaf. Let the freshly baked bread smell come into your mind. Now picture yourself, into your house, ready to bake your rustic sourdough bread after having followed this easy recipe I’m about to tell you.

Sourdough bread recipes are often seen as difficult and tricky to make from scratch, but after some years of baking experience I came up with this very easy “rustic sourdough bread recipe”.

The process is quite simple to follow and the ingredients are as well easy to purchase. The only ingredient you will need your own it’s the Italian Sourdough starter, here you can find an easy way for the production of your Lievito Madre from zero.

what is Sourdough bread?

It is said, the first civilization that has been using this natural fermentation for making bread goes back somewhere around 3500 B.C. in Ancient Egypt. The refinement techniques and the differences develop through the years, gave us the chance as today, to have this tasteful final product: the Sourdough bread.

In a nutshell, sourdough is a slow-fermented bread. Well known for its characteristics such as a chewy texture on the inside, crunchy crust, with a tangy flavour and a sweet finish.

Other benefits of this final product, compared to supermarket loaves, are for sure the higher digestibility, a longer storage, can be consumed by diabetes suffers (thanks to its low glycemic content) and its aroma and taste are much rewarding.

How to begin

The first important step for this recipe is, of course, to have an Italian sourdough starter or a normal sourdough to be converted as such before starting.

If you have followed my Italian Sourdough easy recipe, you will need to refresh it as usual. So take it out from the fridge and keep it at room temperature (24°-26°c) for one to two hours, just enough so it is not so cool. Take off the top layer and refresh the remaining (for this recipe you will need 150g of refreshed lievito madre, for a kilo loaf), so if you have 150g Italian sourdough, you will need to add 75g of filtered warm water and 150g of flour. Knead the dough for 5 to 10 minutes, to make it stronger, keep what you need for this recipe and store the remaining back in the fridge after one hour.

After a couple of hours, or until double in size and bubbling texture, the sourdough starter will be ready to use.

rustic sourdough bread recipe

This recipe will make 1,140 grams loaf, so if you believe is a big quantity just half the amount of all the ingredients and you will have a smaller loaf. But trust me you will love the result.

Ingredients

• 500 grams Type 1 flour
• 100 grams Semola flour
• 360 grams of room temperature water
• 150 grams of refreshed Italian Sourdough starter / Lievito madre
• 3 grams Malt
• 12 grams salt
• 15 grams EVO

Method

The best way to start this dough is by combining the Lievito Madre with water, malt and extra-virgin olive oil. Once you have done this step you can integrate the two flour into it and start to knead roughly (if you have a kneader machine even better). It doesn’t need to be a perfect dough as this will only be the first resting period.

This is called the “autolysis” process and will help to strengthen the gluten and so to make a better final result.

Cover the bowl with a reusable wax wrap or a damp kitchen towel for the following 30 minutes to 1-hour resting. After this time you can finally add the salt and knead it into a smoother dough. Once you reach a softer texture leave it cover for another 20 minutes.

Folding and resting

Now you can start with the folding method, which will help the dough: to strengthen by stretching the gluten strands, to expel the carbon dioxide formed during fermentation and to equalize the dough temperature.

The process is very simple: turn down the dough from the resting bowl into a floured surface, gently pat down the down without removing all the air bubbles. Create the first fold by taking one side of the dough (left or right) and folding it to a third of the way over the rest of the dough. Now from the opposite side, pick up the dough and fold it as a letter, just laying it on top of the previous folding. So you will have now a rectangular dough that needs to be folded two more times. First from the top to a third of the dough again, and then last from the bottom to the fold, having now a square shape. Very important is NOT to incorporate the extra flour you had spread on the surface.

This method is to be done two times every 20 minutes.

When you are done with the last folding, place the dough back into the bowl, but this time with a touch of olive oil or wrapped into a floured kitchen cloth. Now the dough is ready to rest for different hours, depending on the temperature, this can take between 3 to 10 hours.

As the only yeast, we are using is the natural Lievito Madre or sourdough, the process requires more time. But your patience will be rewarded once you will taste this amazing rustic sourdough loaf.

My advice is to let the dough rest in the warmer room of your house, where the temperature can be around 26°- 28° so the rising process can be faster.

Second resting and cooking

When your rustic sourdough bread has doubled up the size, it is then ready to be divided into one or two loaves and shaped as you wish.

Being very gentle move the dough (upside down) from the bowl to a lightly floured surface and start to shape it, round or oval, as you like the most. As I did only one loaf from this recipe I shaped my dough oval. To shape it as such you must be very gentle, as you don’t want to break any air bubbles created with the rising process.

Place the dough on the surface in front of you and stretch the dough almost to create a square out of it, fold it from the top to a third of the dough and the bottom part on top of the first folding. Turn it and shape the bottom gust moving your hands under the dough.

^{Watch the video!}

Transfer the dough, for the final rising time, on a lightly floured tray (semola flour is best). If you wish now you can engrave, with a very sharp blade, the top of your bread.

Preheat the oven at 240°C in static mode, as it will be ready to use once the second resting time is over. This can take up to an hour because you won’t need the dough to double up in size but it will need just to be a pluffy and no longer dense dough.

At this point, your rustic sourdough is ready to be placed in the oven. I like to cook my bread by creating some moisture in the oven, so 5 minutes before baking, I’d place a tray with some water at the bottom of the oven. The moisture will help the bread to cook better and get this perfect artisan-style bread result.

Place the tray at the centre rack into the oven and start to bake at 240°C for 20 minutes. After this time, remove the tray with the water, lower the temperature to 210°C and continue to bake for another 40 minutes, doing the last 10 minutes with the open crack oven. This will allow the moisture to escape and will give your sourdough a crunchy and coloured crust.

Cooling and enjoy it!

The whole hour in the oven will leave your Rustic sourdough, cook through perfectly and your house will smell amazing.

An important step is to cool the bread loaf on a wire rack, for more or less an hour (if you can resist the perfume).

Finally, your sourdough is ready.

This is a very simple recipe, the only thing that is very required is your patience and of course the love you will put to follow this recipe step by step. My advice is not to try shortcuts as they don’t always work. To be honest with you I have been doing this recipe for many years now, and it can happen to fail if you rush the process, but if you don’t, the result will be great.

Leave a comment if you try this recipe and let me know how your bread was, if you have any other questions about this recipe don’t hesitate to contact me. I will be very pleased to help you through.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Italian Sourdough starter