Ingredients

Scale

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 egg
1/2 cup water
2 1/2 – 3 cups bread flour
4 – 5 oz. sourdough starter (about 1/2 cup)
1 – 2 Tablespoons sugar or honey
2/3 teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

In a large bowl, mix together the olive oil, egg, water, sourdough starter, sugar, yeast and salt with 2 cups of flour until the dough starts to come together. It will be very shaggy at this point.
Add flour, a bit at a time, and mix with your hands until you have a nice dough. Set the dough on a floured surface and knead just a bit to get it to incorporate at least another 1/2 cup of flour. I used about 2 3/4 cup flour total.
Oil the dough with a bit of olive oil, set in the bowl, cover and let rest for a couple hours, checking it and folding it a couple times if it doesn’t look like it’s making a nice smooth dough.
Shape the dough into a nice round ball and set on a piece of parchment paper. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place until roughly doubled in size.
Set a dutch oven or large covered casserole in the oven and preheat the oven to 450 F. Let the casserole sit in the oven for 10 minutes or so after the oven is up to temp to get it good and hot.
Slash the top of the bread with an oiled bread lam or very sharp serrated knife, then carefully remove the casserole dish from the oven, remove the cover and gently pick up the loaf on the parchment paper and set it in the hot dish. Cover and put back in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes without peeking.
After 15 minutes, you can look at the loaf and see how brown it’s getting. Cover and bake for another 5 – 10 minutes or until the loaf is a nice dark golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting.

Notes

If you prefer to use a sponge instead of sourdough starter, stir together 1 cup flour and 1 cup water with 1 teaspoon yeast. Cover and let sit on the counter for 1 – 3 days. You can use the full amount of sponge in this recipe (in place of the sourdough starter above) or save a bit of the sponge, feed it again with 3/4 cup water and 1 cup flour and store it in the fridge for future sourdough. I store my starter in a quart size mason jar with loosely fit lid.

Is it sourdough if you add yeast? I would contend that it IS sourdough because it contains sourdough starter, but if you’re concerned about adding yeast, then leave it out. Rise times will be longer without the yeast and your bread will taste more “sour”.

RECIPE SOURCE: http://www.sumptuousspoonfuls.com/

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