The Sourdough Bread Bake Off
How we made 9 loaves of sourdough in one day
I always said I’d never do a sourdough bread bake off because just the thought of trying to make 9 (NINE!) loaves of sourdough in one day instantly drained my will to live. Not to mention my amateur technique was NOT up to the job.
But then enters Christine, owner of a sourdough micro-bakery in Long Island City and she really changed everything! You can find the write up of our sourdough bake off here, and I’m including a little behind-the-scenes of our process below.
For someone who is a confident baker but felt really intimated by sourdough, let me tell you that my eyes have been opened. I don’t think sourdough is as hard as we think it is! (As long as you have a great starter—for this, I highly recommend calling around to your local bakeries to see if you can buy some reliable starter unless you have a great sourdough baker friend nearby.) There is definitely some trial and error involved, but Christine has only been baking sourdough for around 3 years and makes it look like a breeze.
Enjoy!
Behind the scenes: how we made 9 loaves in one day
As you’ll read in the blog post, we didn’t actually make 9 distinct recipes—we made 9 distinct RATIOS while standardizing each on Christine’s process, which is optimized for her apartment conditions. Per Christine, sourdough is very much about the technique and figuring out what works best for your conditions (the temperature of your apartment, strength of your starter, etc.)
Here’s what the schedule looked like:
FRIDAY
10am: Christine feeds her starter (enough to feed 9 different loaves later).
5pm: I show up at Christine’s apartment. Christine is an actual machine and is measuring out the flour, water, and starter faster than I can mix each dough in her KitchenAid and rinse out the bowl in between. (I bring over some mixing bowls so that we have 9 total vessels to let the dough rest in.)
5:30pm: By the time we’re done mixing all the doughs, around 30 minutes has passed, which is the perfect time to add the salt. Christine adds in the salt along with 25g of water (reserved from each recipe to help the salt incorporate) and dimples/folds it in.
6pm: Once all the salt has been incorporated into each recipe, another 30 minutes has passed, which is the perfect time to start the stretch and folds. Christine shows me the first set of stretch and folds and then sends me home, insisting that the rest “will be easy.”
*Before she sends me home, we pregame bread with more bread (she feeds me a slice of her almond croissant sourdough loaf which is laminated with her almond croissant butter. So good!!)
SATURDAY
9am: I show up to Christine’s apartment at our agreed-upon time and she already has 2 loaves baked and 2 more in the oven (her oven is only big enough to bake one loaf at a time (#nyclife) so we are also running up and back one floor to check on a loaf in her neighbor’s oven (they are absolute angels)).
9:30am: She shows me how she brushes the flour off of each loaf after unmolding it from the banneton, then sprays it with water for oven spring, scores it, then puts it in the scorching hot oven for 6 minutes before scoring it again (this also promotes oven spring and a better ear). Each loaf gets baked for 14 minutes with the lid on, 16 minutes with the lid off.
10am-12:30pm: Repeat x4 and the baking is done! Lots of running up and down the stairs during this part.
12:30-1pm: Christine slices into each loaf for video content and then we start boxing up the samples.
1-1:30pm: We decide to shoot a quick tasting review video which in retrospect turns out to be a poor decision as I end up literally running out the door and am still late for bake off pick ups in Soho (thank you to everyone who still managed to find me at the park!!)
Now that you understand how easy I had it during this bake off, let’s give Christine a HUGE THANK YOU!
If you live in NYC, keep an eye out for her bread drops from I Loaf You—her freshly baked sourdough is such a treat!
And as always, feel free to let me know in the comments you’d like to see next. Chiffon cake and peanut butter cake are high on my list!