San Francisco Style Sourdough French Bread
photo by pdelgiorno 
- Ready In:
- 5hrs 10mins
- Ingredients:
- 8
- Yields:
- loaves
ingredients
- 1 1⁄2 cups water, warm
- 1 tablespoon yeast
- 1 cup sourdough starter
- 3 cups bread flour
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 cups bread flour
directions
- In a large mixing bowl dissolve yeast in warm water, mix with starter.
- Add 3 cups flour, sugar and salt, stir vigorously 2 or 3 minutes.
- Cover with a cloth, set in warm place and let rise 1-1/2 to 2 hours or until doubled in size.
- Mix baking soda with 1 cup of remaining flour and stir in, the dough should be stiff.
- Turn out onto a floured surface and begin kneading.
- Add the remaining 1 cup of flour or more if needed to control stickiness.
- Knead until satiny, between 5 and 10 minutes.
- Shape into 2 oblong loaves or 1 large round loaf, place on lightly greased cookie sheet.
- Cover with a cloth, set in warm place free from drafts and let rise 1 to 2 hours or until nearly doubled in size.
- Before baking, brush outside with water and make diagonal slashes across the top with a sharp single-edge razor blade.
- Put a shallow pan of hot water in the bottom of the oven.
- Bake at 400° F for 45 minutes or until the crust is a medium dark brown.
Questions & Replies
- When I bake sourdough bread and slice the top before baking it deflates and let's the gas out. Still tastes OK, but as you might huess it's a little heaverier. What am I doing wrong?
- Why the baking soda? I haven't seen any other sourdough or french bread recipes use it and was wondering what difference it makes in the bread?
- Well, my bread sure doesn't look like yours. The color that shows in my picture isn't the true color. Mine is a medium tan plus I think that I didn't let it rise enough because the sides blew out while it was baking. I hope that it will taste good because we are having lasagna for dinner.
Reviews
- <b>DE-VINE!!!!</b> Wonderful recipe...excellent instruction...delicious results ...I followed directions to the letter...made one large loaf that I brushed with salted H20 which resulted w/ a crunchy crisp pretzel like crusty top and perfect airy interior...used recipe#13750 as my starter (been nursing that since Dec.08) - oh did bake slightly less that 45...{{ one reviewer said 34 that about was when i ck'ed it too, basically get familiar w/ your own oven and the weather ;) }} <b> THE BEST BREAD </b> Thanks for the recipe share...a def. do it again!!! :)
- I believe there is a serious problem with the amount of yeast called for in this recipe. The bread turned out tasting like nothing but yeast! The instructions were good, and otherwise seems like a good recipe. I will try it again with 1 tsp, maybe 2... instead of 1 TBSP of yeast!
- The end result had a very thick crust and was dense as a black hole.
- Interesting recipe and good result. I should have elongated the loaves somewhat, but the finished product was very tasty. I put a little sugar in with the yeast, starter and water solution in the beginning of the recipe to aid in the yeast activation. I will make this one again.
- Ended up being very dense, and it fell when I brushed water onto it. Not sure if I'll try this one again or not. The flavor is t bad though
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
I'm a father of three older children (college age), an avid hiker who likes to actually cook on hikes instead of eating packaged meals, a woodworker, gardener, photographer. I design websites, specializing in sites for Non-Profit groups.
