Go Back
Print Recipe
No ratings yet

Homemade Bread Recipe

Course: Baked Goods
Author: Ann Timm

Ingredients

  • 3 1/2 cups kamut flour you can substitute spelt flour, as in the original recipe, or whole wheat flour
  • 3 cups rye flour
  • 1 quart sourdough starter
  • 3 cups filtered water
  • 1 1/2 TBSP salt

Instructions

  • Mix all together, with a heavy duty wooden spoon or something similar, for 5 to 10 minutes. The mixture will be wet enough that there's no way you could knead it. Instead, you just stir it really, really well, and you will notice that the texture begins to change as the gluten strands lengthen, and it will get harder to stir. It really doesn't need any more than 5-10 minutes!I have actually recently been experimenting with mixing up the dough in my Sunbeam Mixmaster. I know that you're not supposed to use metal on sourdough, as it can weaken the culture. However, so far the recipe has still worked just fine the 2 times that I have tried it. It takes even more of the work out of it, and mixes it quite well.
  • Pour the dough evenly into 3 well greased bread pans (I use my leftover butter wrappers to grease them). Using a wet hand, smooth or flatten it a bit.
  • Place the bread pans aside on a counter for at least 7 hours, covered loosely with a dish towel.
  • Once they have risen sufficiently, basically double in size and close to the top of the bread pan, they are ready to be baked. For me, this usually happens after about 7-8 hours. If they have risen before the 7 hours, wait it out. They need the full amount of time for the phytic acid to be broken down through the fermentation process of the sourdough. I've also had times when perhaps my starter wasn't quite active enough, and I left them slightly longer. No big deal, but be forewarned that if you leave them significantly longer (like 14 hours, oops! :) they will be very. very. sour. Still good, but sour.
  • Bake at 350 F for 1 hour. (When you use kamut instead of spelt, it seems to increase the baking time a little. It's difficult to say whether it's just my oven or not, but I have found that it needs more like 70-75 minutes for me to have them turn out fully cooked in the middle. I haven't tried it with wheat yet, so no tips there.)

Notes

This is actually half of the original recipe, which is intended to make 6 loaves of bread. I only have 3 bread pans, so I cut it in half and it makes enough to last us about 2 weeks, give or take.