Name: Classic sourdough bread
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 65 min
Yield: 12
Cuisine: Vegan
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups of lukewarm water; 1 cup of leaven (sourdough starter); 2 cups of all-purpose unbleached flour; 1 cup of whole wheat flour; 1 1/4 tsp of salt

Steps

Dough

In a bowl, mix lukewarm water and sourdough until the leaven dissolves
Add all-purpose unbleached flour, whole wheat flour and salt. Mix until no dry flour is left. Cover the bowl and let stand for 20/60 minutes.
Meanwhile, feed the remaining sourdough (1/2 cup of water, 1/2 cup of flour)

Development of the dough

Every 30-90 minutes, during 4-5h, peel off the dough from one edge of the bowl, stretch and bring back to the center (stretch and fold). Go around the bowl this way a few times and cover the bowl.

Bread structure

Sprinkle the workspace with a bit of water and then take out the dough from the bowl gently with a scraper, directly on the workspace.
Bring the 4 corners of the dough in the middle, then the 4 new corners, so as to form a ball.
Turn the ball around, turn it between your fingers and pull the dough to tighten it and make a nice ball. Lightly flour the top, flour a cloth (ideally with rice flour) and place the top of the ball, face down, in the cloth, in a bowl. Cover the bowl and put in the fridge.

Baking

A few hours to 3 days later, preheat the oven to 500F for 30 minutes with a dutch oven inside.
Once preheated, remove the bread from the fridge, transfer it from the bowl to a sheet of parchment paper, make an incision lengthwise, about 1-2 cm deep.
Bake for 25 minutes in the dutch oven, lid on.
Bake for another 10-15 minutes at 450F without the lid.
Take the bread out of the oven and let it cool on a rack for at least 2 hours to get a good consistency.

Notes

For cooking: once you take off the dutch oven lid and continue cooking, you'll harden and caramelize the crust. 10 minutes gives a nice thin golden crust whereas 15 minutes gives a tasty grilled crust.