Sourdough bread recipe

The joy of making bread – baking manual of collective Pão Rebelde
Making bread, is not only about the milliliters of water, grams of flour and a bit of salt. It is more interesting to mix ingredients with care, enjoy the manual work and create a delicious product.

Ingredients & kneading
This recipe is based on using sourdough. Sourdough consists of flour, water and can be activated with something sweet: sugar or honey for example. Every time you make bread you save a portion of the sourdough in a dry and dark place, to be used the next time.

1. Measure the amount of flour you need and put it in a bowl. For 1 bread of 1 kilo, we use 500 gr. flour. You can add seeds or other ingredients (garlic, herbs, olives, nuts etc.) to give extra taste to the bread.
2. Preparation of sourdough. Now it is time for a little mathematical calculation. 
200 gr. of sourdough per kilo of flour (in winter, when it is cold you can use more, for example 300 gr.). Add a cup of warm water with it to make it more fluid and easier to mix with the flour.
3. Make a hole in the middle of the flour and pour the sourdough mixture in.
4. Weigh the salt, 16 gr. per kg of flour or a tablespoon of salt per kilo of dough. The salt can be left on the edges of the bowl on top of the flour, so it will be mixed in at the end of mixing process.
5. Knead the dough. Now it's time to role up the sleeves and put your muscles into action. For 1 kilo of bread, for which we used 500 gram of flour, we use about 250/300 ml of water. Heat the water before you add it. To be sure to have the right temperature, you can test it with your hand. The water should be hot, but should not burn your hand (to reach the optimal temperature: Mix 1/3 of boiling water and 2/3 of water at room temperature). In the start pour in a big amount of water, as water will be easier to integrate at the start of the kneading process and will help a lot to create a light and airy dough that will raise well! Try to start from the middle mixing bit by bit more flour into the mixture. If needed pour more water. The mixture should stay quite liquid until all flour is adapted, then try to create a ball. From this moment you don't need to add more water, but keep on kneading for about 30 minutes. You can turn it around and punch it if you like, have fun!  After this intense work, it's time to leave the bread rise in a warm place, the bread has to double in size (can take 1-4 hour).
6. Preparation of forms: spread a layer of vegetable oil in the from and sprinkle a bit of flour on it so the bread won't stick to the form. Make loafs from between 750gr and 1kg. Better not to knead at this moment, as we want to keep the effect it reached after the first rising. It is good to make a cut in the bread with a knife, to make sure that when it is being baked the crust will not burst randomly.
7. Leave the bread rise a second time, about 1 hour, in the forms in a warm place.
8. For electric oven: preheat the oven at 210°C
9. Put the bread in the oven, but be sure that it is hot enough!!! Leave the oven 10 minutes at 210°C  so that the crust is formed, then switch the temperature to 180ºC and let the bread bake another 40 to 50 minutes. A tip: put a baking dish filled with water in the bottom of the oven to get a more airy, fluffy result.



Now there is only one thing left to say: “Bon Appetit”