A Simple Boule with Many Options

During the recipe testing process for my upcoming sourdough book, this simple bread was one of the most popular recipes. It’s an easy recipe that makes a beautiful loaf, and depending on your schedule and your priorities, you can either make this as a same-day bake, ferment it overnight, or proof it overnight. There’s also a bunch more options for flours and inclusions, which I’ll discuss at the end of the recipe (and I’ll also give you a recipe table so you can easily scale this up to make more than 1 loaf).

This is a simple dough to measure, mix, and bake. Just plain whole wheat flour, 20% sourdough starter by weight, and close to 80% hydration. It can be mixed with a spoon or by hand. Scale the recipe up or down, bake it on the same day for simple wheaty flavours, or leave it to retard overnight for a loaf with more fermented flavour and better keeping qualities.

If all the stretching, folding, and resting in this recipe doesn’t suit your schedule, feel free to just do the first set and skip the rest: the structure won’t be quite as good, but it will still taste great.

Bakers Percentages

Whole wheat flour 100%

Water 81%

Salt 1.5%

Pre-fermented flour 9%

Equipment

Mixing bowl

Bowl at least 20cm (8”) in size

Non-fluffy tea towel

Cast iron dutch oven at least 4L (4 quarts) in capacity

Timing

Bulk ferment: 4 hours, or overnight

Proof: 2 to 3 hours, or overnight

Ingredients for 1 loaf

100g (scant ½ cup) ripe sourdough starter at 100% hydration

500g (3 ¾ cups + 2 Tbsp) whole wheat flour (or use whole emmer or khorasan)

400g (1 ⅔ cups) water

8g (2 ½ tsp) salt

Method

Mix
​Combine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix with a spoon or your hands until no traces of flour remain.

Rest, stretch, and fold
​Allow to sit for around 20 minutes, then do a series of stretch and folds.

Ferment​
Leave to ferment until it has increased in size somewhat and feels puffy and airy when poked – this will take around 4 hours at around 22ºC (72ºF), longer if it’s colder. Optionally do up to three more sets of stretches and folds early on in the fermentation time.

Divide, shape, and proof
​Divide the dough if you’re making more than one loaf, and shape into boules. Place in a bowl lined with a tea towel, and leave to rise either two to three hours at room temperature, or overnight below 8ºC (46ºF).

Bake
​Preheat the oven to 230ºC (450ºF) with a dutch oven (including the lid) inside it.

Once the oven and dutch oven are hot, gently invert your loaf into the dutch oven, optionally score the top of the loaf a couple of times, put the lid back on, and bake for 50 minutes in total, removing the lid after the first 20 minutes.

More options

Large boule
​Make a two loaf batch of dough and then shape and bake it as a single large boule. Reduce the temperature to 220ºC (430ºF) and increase the baking time by fifteen minutes. You’ll need to use a dutch oven at least five litres (5 quarts) in size.

Different shapes
​Feel free to shape and bake as baguettes, rolls, bâtards, or pan loaves.

Different flours
​Feel free to replace up to 15% of the wheat flour with rye, replace up to 50% of the flour with spelt, or reduce the water by 45g (3 Tbsp) per loaf and use all einkorn or all spelt.

Adding fruit, nuts, or seeds
​Add up to 25% of the flour weight in nuts, fruit, or seeds of your choice. Gently add them during the last set of stretch and folds.

Ingredients table for larger batches

May your kitchen be filled with the smell of freshly baked bread. Floury regards,

Kate

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P.S. If you'd like to access an archive of all previous Floury Friday emails, simply visit http://katedownham.kit.com.

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