Our Julia is for 10 months in America. She says, the American bread is quite different and she is missing our bread.
It is actually very easy to make a sour dough bread.

Starter

What you need first is the starter. I made it 3 days before I baked the bread. All you need is:

• 3 spoons of lukewarm water
• 3 spoons of the rye flour (you can take wheat flour instead, the sour dough is less strong).

Mix water and flour and let it sit at the room temperature overnight. Every day add some flour and water to feed the yeast and bacteria. Depending on the temperature the starter is ready in 3-5 days.

When it is mature, it should smell sour (!) but fresh and small bubbles should show on the surface.

When you make the bread, you take most of the starter and use the rest as the starter for the next bread, feeding it every day with flour and water.

You can also put the starter into the refrigerator if you plan to bake the next bread in a few days.

Making bread

Ingredients

• 1-1 1/2 cup of the mature starter
• 1 2/3 cups (200g) rye flour
• 2 cups (250g) wheat or dinkel wheat flour
• 2/3 cup (100g) of a mixture of oat bran, rye whole grain, sunflower seeds etc.
• 0.5oz (14g) dry yeast or (1.7oz) 50g fresh yeast
• 2 tea spoons salt
• 1-1.5 cup (250-350ml) lukewarm water

Kneading

If you use fresh yeasts, crash them in a cup add some water and flour and leave it for 20 minutes.

Put all ingredients into a mixing bowl and add at first 1 cup of water. If the dough is too stiff, you will add more water later.

Knead dough until it passes the “window pane test.” That is, a small piece of dough will stretch between four fingers thin enough to allow light to pass through without breaking. It takes some 15-20 minutes.

Proof

Cover lightly with a towel and proof 1-3 hours. You can leave it even for 24h.

Forming and second proof

Form the loaf or put the dough in a form (in this case the dough can be more fluid).

Cover lightly with a towel and proof for the next 1-3 hours.

Baking

Bake at 380°F (190°C) for 60 minutes.

Remove the loaf from the form shortly after you removed it from the oven. Otherwise it will get wet.

If the bread is too soft or pale, place it again in the oven for some 5 minutes.

Guten Apetit i Smacznego!