So, you want to make a damn loaf of sourdough, huh? Well, buckle up. This isn’t your average bread-baking escapade. Instagram influencers and their perfect loaves can shove it. Real sourdough, true sourdough, is a tempestuous mistress, testing your patience and humility at every turn. It’s not the stuff of Pinterest perfection but a craft that demands respect, and maybe a little swearing along the way.

Sourdough isn’t so much a recipe as it is a relationship—a clingy, needy one at that. You’re working with a living thing here, and like any volatile partnership, it comes with its fair share of drama. But when this wild yeast and flour symphony finally sings in harmony, oh baby, it’s worth the turmoil.

Starter Drama:

To embark on this journey, you need a starter—essentially a smelly jar of flour and water that belies its value with a seemingly benign appearance. Once nurtured over days (or, if you’re masochistic, weeks), it becomes your baking soul mate, albeit one that plans to overtake your refrigerator space. If you don’t have a starter, I’m not here to hold your hand through that, but find someone who does and beg, barter, or steal it.

Ingredients:

500g bread flour (none of that all-purpose nonsense)
350g water (lukewarm, like your morning coffee after a work call)
100g active sourdough starter (alive, bubbly, with the attitude to match)
10g salt (or less if you prefer a quiet life)
Rice flour (for dusting, not cooking, unless you fancy choking)

Instructions:

1. The Waiting Game: In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour and water. Stir violently or lull them together gently—your choice. Let it sit for 30 minutes. In sourdough lingo, this is called ‘autolyse.’ It’s basically time for the water and flour to get acquainted and plot your demise without the salt.

2. The Starter Stir: Pour the starter and salt into the bowl. Mix until you’ve got something that resembles dough. By mix, I mean fold and squelch until it feels cohesive. You’re looking for the dough to stop acting like rebellious teens.

3. The Stretch of Fate: Over the next 3-4 hours, perform stretches and folds every 30-45 minutes. Imagine you’re in a gym class, making everything as awkward as possible. Each time, lift a section of the dough, stretch it, and fold it back. By the end, you should have a semi-smooth, elastic dough that doesn’t judge your lack of a workout regime.

4. The Long Sleep: Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it rise until doubled in size. This could be 4 hours, or half your life—sourdough is as notoriously unpredictable as your cat. I recommend a 20-hour overnight proof in the fridge to help it mellow out and develop flavor, or just piss you off even more.

5. The Shaping Trial: On a lightly floured surface, turn out the dough. Using your hands (or claws at this point of insanity), shape it into a tight round loaf. Dust your proofing basket (or bowl, whatever) with rice flour and place the dough seam side up. Encourage it with kind words; it’s been a bit of a diva.

6. The Final Proof: Let the dough proof for another 2-4 hours at room temperature. But who are we kidding, let it double in size or look at it sideways until it decides it’s done. A final 8-hour chill in the fridge wouldn’t go amiss either.

7. The Bake: Preheat your oven to 230°C (or the ninth circle of hell). Place a Dutch oven inside to heat up. Once ready, carefully transfer your dough onto parchment paper and slash the top with a sharp blade. Take out the blistering hot pot, lower the dough in, cover, and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the lid, bake for another 20 minutes until it’s golden, or your ego is toasted—whichever comes first.

8. The Cooling: Let the loaf cool for at least an hour. I know, it’s painful waiting. But cutting into hot bread will earn you sadness and regret.

So here’s the bitter truth: after all that effort, your sourdough might come out looking like a deflated basketball. That’s the slap happy face life lesson here, courtesy of the sourdough gods. But one day, after enough trying and weeping, you’ll cut open a loaf to find an intricate web of bubbles, creamy crumb, and a crackling crust. And just like that, you’ll remember why you started this horrific yet romantic dance in the first place. You’ll sigh, smugly slice another piece, and know you’ll do it all over again.