1. Feed starter late as possible the night before you want to make bread(around 9pm). Feed with equal amounts of starter, water and flour.

 

2. Its now 7-8am when your starter should have risen and ready to use. Mix everything except salt in a kitchen aid or mix by hand. After 10 or so minutes of mixing add the salt and any other flavours or ingredients like grains. Then up the kitchen aid to a medium speed till the dough forms a nice smooth ball and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

​

3. Place in lightly oiled bowl, cover in cling film and let rest at room temperature till almost doubled. Then you will start the first of 3-4 "folds". This is when you pull the dough up from one side and place into the centre. Turn bowl then do 3 more times till your back to the first fold. Cover bowl again in same cling film and let sit till it's almost doubled again.

Repeat 3-4 more times if needed. You will know when it has a lot of structure and isn't as easy to pull up to folds.

​

4.Now its around 3-4 pm and you will want to flour your bench surface and place all dough the same side down it was in the bowl. So the bottom part of the dough needs to sit on the floured bench. Let it rest for 5min to relax.

 

5. Then split evenly into 2 pieces. Do not get flour on the top of the dough, you will need the stickiness to stitch together into a nice ball. Similar to the folds you did earlier, bring all sides into a nice tight ball and "stitch" together, then place into a well-floured banneton or bowl with the stitching side up.

​

5. Next you will want to place straight into fridge overnight to slowly develop the gluten.

​

6. First things first grab the bread out of the fridge and turn oven to 240C. Flip upside down onto parchment paper and slash down the side with a sharp knife or blade. Then you will place into dutch oven/pot. If you don't have a dutch oven you can use pots covered in foil. Or if you have none of these you can bake on a tray. You will need a second deep dished tray with boiling water to emit steam throughout the whole process. This will act as a dutch oven would and help with the moisture to open up the dough for as long as possible at the beginning. This is very important step.

 

7. Place dough in oven and splash a glass of water in the bottom and close as fast as you can. Set timer for 20min and come back to turn down to 220C, take lids off and splash more water on the bottom of the oven. Set timer for another 10min and check. You are looking for a nice brown colouring and a hollow sound when you tap the bottom of the bake.

 

8. Rest for at least 1 hour or more so it has time to rest before trying to slice into it. Also a very important step.

 

9. Enjoy!

​