How to Make Sourdough Bread When You’re Feeling Lazy AF
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We’ve all scrolled through the endless feed of perfect sourdough bread loaves and thought, “I love sourdough, but I’m too lazy to make something that looks like that.
It’s Just So Much Work, Though
Well, today is your lucky day because I’m feeling really lazy, too. So, let’s make some sourdough, y’all! I don’t feel like kneading. I really don’t want to listen to my mixer kneading. And frankly, I’d really rather crash on the couch while the bread makes itself. Is that possible?
I mean… kind of. The goal of this recipe is to make sourdough bread with absolutely minimal effort. Like, we’re going into this knowing we have to do SOMETHING, but can we just not do ALL THE THINGS?
Is this speaking your language? Alright cool. Let’s talk logistics real quick.
Making Sourdough Bread the Laziest Way Possible
Starting with the ingredients, we’ll need sourdough starter, more flour, more water, salt, sugar, and olive oil.
Feed Your Starter without a Scale
First things first, we have to feed our starter. We’re going to skip the scale, though. I know. It’s blasphemy. Stick with me.
Measure out 1 cup of starter into a large mixing bowl. To this, you’re going to add 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water.
Now, when I say to add flour, what I mean is this. Take an extra 2 seconds to fluff your flour up so it’s not compacted, and then scoop it into your measuring cup. Level it off. Now you can dump it in the bowl.
We’re not here to waste ingredients even though we’re taking a well-deserved lazy day, okay? Mix your starter, flour and water until it’s smooth. Cover it with a dish towel, leave it on the counter, and go watch an episode of Gilmore Girls. Don’t forget your cup of coffee.
Make the Dough
Once you see some pretty nice looking bubbles evenly dispersed through that fed starter, you’re going to turn it into a dough.
Now, measure in 3 cups of flour (remember what I told you about measuring properly), 1 cup of water, 1 Tablespoon of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of active dry yeast, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of salt.
Grab a wooden spoon, and stir it all together. If you’re fancy, you might have a Danish whisk which will make this a WHOLE lot easier. Either way, get it all mixed together. If you’re feeling the kind of lazy where you don’t mind digging your hands in, go ahead. Just don’t work too hard, okay?
We just want to make sure everything is incorporated. Now, put the bowl in a warm spot, cover it in its kitchen towel blanket, and leave it alone to nap for an hour.
And yes, before you think I’m blowing past this… we are adding active dry yeast. If we’re gonna be lazy and we want a full looking sourdough loaf, we need to give our natural yeasty friends a little help. It’ll still taste like sourdough, but it won’t take forever to get it to rise.
How to Lazy-Shape Sourdough
Now, flour a clean counter space generously and dump your sourdough out onto the flour. Use a bench scraper to dig under the right side and fold it over to the center. Do the same on the bottom, left, and top sides of your dough. Then go back around all four sides three more times.
This is the most “kneading” we’re going to do, and it mostly just helps to smooth out the dough.
Use your scraper to flip it over. Now, use your hands to swirl the dough around like you’re a ball around in a circle between them. This will help shape it up a little bit.
Okay, now we’re moving on from making the dough to final proof, “decorating” and baking. How hard have you worked so far?
Your Sourdough Bread’s Final Proof
At this point, we’re ready to move the dough for its final proof. Fancy people have a good sourdough basket like this one. This allows airflow to your dough so it develops a kind of skin.
I’ve tried proofing in a glass bowl with a floured dishtowel. It was fine, but the dough didn’t quite get the skin I wanted, and it absorbed all that flour. Not ideal.
Your best bet is to grab a colander if you don’t have a sourdough basket. It’ll let enough air in, but it will also keep the dough from spreading way out. So, line the colander with a dishtowel. Liberally sprinkle that towel with flour. Then set your dough into the center, seam side up.
Just as a reminder: the seam side is where you were folding all the sides into the center. That goes on the top.
Now, sprinkle more flour on top, fold the towel over your dough and place it in that same warm spot for an hour or two for a second name. It really needs some beauty sleep to grow big and strong. We’re looking for it to double in size.
Do I Really Need to Slash My Sourdough?
Grab a cast iron skillet and some parchment paper. Crumble the paper up. Then open it back up, and form it into the skillet as best you can. Sprinkle flour over the bottom and sides. Now, you can flip your dough out of the towel and into the pan so the seam side is now on the bottom.
Give it a little extra flour dusting on top for good measure.
So, we are definitely going to have to slash the top of our dough, and here’s why. When bread bakes, it expands. If it expands the way we want it to, it’s going to break open the skin.
We can prevent ugly breaks by cutting a fairly deep slash across it, about half an inch deep. If you’re really feeling crafty, you can go for a fancy pattern. I usually like a curved line down the side, an X, or a tic-tac-toe… just something simple.
The Laziest Way to Bake Sourdough Bread
We’re almost ready to bake but first, open your oven and look at where your racks are. Make sure you have adequate room for your bread to rise without hitting an oven rack. Trust me… if you’re feeling lazy now, you are not going to want to scrape bread off an oven rack later.
Then, preheat your oven. Conventionally, you’ll preheat your skillet with the oven, but we’re taking it easy today and, therefore, removing all burn risks. Also, our lazy sourdough bread is already in the pan and waiting to go. That’s just how this recipe goes.
Once your oven is hot, put the skillet in. Close it up, set the timer, and settle in for a nice read with a cup of coffee or an episode of your favorite show.
Sorry, But You Have to Wait
When your bread comes out of the oven, knock on the top with your knuckle. Does it sound hollow? If you don’t trust your ability to judge “hollow,” just use a kitchen thermometer and check that the interior is 190ºF.
Now that you know for sure your bread is cooked, you’ll move it to a wire cooling rack and let it cool completely. That’s right. You have to wait. Yes, this is necessary.
Your sourdough bread is still cooking a little bit as it sits there, and if you cut it open, all the steam inside escapes and you lose moisture. No one likes dry stale bread. So, let it cool.
No Shame in Making Lazy Sourdough Bread
One thing I’ve noticed since the pandemic hit is that we’ve been told there is one way to make sourdough bread. If we don’t follow those exact rules, we’re not really making bread.
Guys.
If you use sourdough starter to bake bread, you’ve made sourdough bread. Okay?
Let’s not be quite so pretentious about how we got to the end result of a delicious and fluffy loaf of bread. Don’t get nit-picky about the size of the air holes or the chewiness or the heartiness of the crust.
Does it taste good? Does it look pretty good considering the level of effort you put in? Okay. There you go. Keep your eye on what’s actually important please.
And thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
If You Want Some Cool Sourdough Bread Making Tools…
Depending on your level of lazy, you may or may not be putting this endeavor off until the weekend. You might also want some of the cool specialty tools for the job.
Here are my recommendations. Keep in mind that I gave alternative options in the blog, so take note of those where you need to.
Comment below if you have questions, concerns, or opinions. And tag me @ellejayathome on Instagram or Twitter if you share pictures from any of my recipes. I love to hear from you!
Lazy Sourdough Bread
Ingredients
Feed Your Starter
- 1 cup starter
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup all purpose flour
Bread Dough
- 2 cups all purpose flour plus more for dusting
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp pure cane sugar
- 1 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 tsp pink himalayan sea salt
Instructions
- Start by feeding your starter. Mix together starter, water, and flour. Allow it to sit for at least 1 hour until bubbles surface evenly across your fed starter.
- Stir in the ingredients for your bread dough: flour, yeast, olive oil, salt, and sugar. Stir until everything is well incorporated. Cover and rest for 1 hour in a warm spot.
- Turn your dough out onto a well-floured surface. Using a bench scraper, stretch and pull all four sides of the dough into the center. Repeat stretching and pulling all four sides a second, third, and fourth time.
- Flip the dough over and roll it between your hands, rotating it in a circle to seal the bottom and tighten the skin on top.
- Lay a towel into a colander or line your sourdough bread basket. Flour the fabric liberally. Set your dough into the basket top side down (the seam facing up). Flour the seam-side of the dough and cover with a towel. Let it rise for 1 to 2 hours (until doubled in size) in a warm spot.
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF for 1 hour.
- Meanwhile, crumble up a sheet of parchment paper and form it into a cast iron pan. Dust with flour.
- Turn your dough out into the lined cast iron pan. Score the top. Rest for 1 hour while the oven preheats.
- Place your cast iron in the oven and bake for 40 minutes.
- Allow your bread to cool completely before cutting into it.
