I don’t want to try to force your hand this week when it comes to your Thanksgiving menu. I know you are all very busy, and most likely have your menus already planned out.
So instead I will just leave you with this recipe for Sourdough Peasant Bread. It’s a buttery sourdough loaf that requires absolutely no kneading or shaping, has relatively short rising times, and can be baked in two Pyrex bowls, which most of us probably already have laying around.
In summary: It’s buttery, easy, and takes about half the time of your average yeast rolls. And any leftover slices would make killer turkey sandwiches.
But like I said: Far be it from me to influence your menu choices this week.
Adapted from Alexandra’s Kitchen.
Sourdough starter recipe.
Sourdough Peasant Bread
Ingredients
- 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water between 105-115 degrees
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 package active-dry yeast 2 1/4 teaspoons
- 1 cup sourdough starter
- 2 tablespoons butter room temperature
Instructions
- In a small bowl or measuring cup, add the yeast and sugar to the lukewarm water. Allow to rest for 5-10 minutes, or until yeast is foamy/bubbly.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Add the sourdough starter and the yeast mixture, and stir until combined. Dough will be very sticky!
- Cover the bowl with a tea towel and set in a warm place to rise for an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Grease two oven-safe bowls (see note) with about a tablespoon of butter each.
- Gently stir down the risen dough. Scrape half of the dough into each bowl. Cover the bowls again and allow to rise for 20-30 minutes, or until the dough reaches just below the rim (for a larger bowl) or just above it (for a smaller one).
- Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 degrees and continue baking for an additional 15-17 minutes or until loaves are golden brown.
- Remove loaves from oven and turn out onto a cooling rack. Let cool for 10 minutes before slicing.
Notes
Pyrex bowls are the perfect baking vessels for this bread, preferably 1 to 1.5 qt size. The ideal size is a Pyrex 322 bowl. Do not use a bowl larger than 2 qts. If you do not have bowls this size, the original post says that you can bake 3/4 of the dough in a loaf pan and bake the remaining dough in muffin tins or popover pans.
Makes 2 loaves.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
I have yeast issues. No, not THOSE kind. Ew. Just, well, bread making isn’t my thing. BUT I would gladly except a loaf of this delivered…
Baaahahahahahaa, I adore you. Even with your yeast issues. (UGH.)
Baking in a pyrex bowl? Girl, you a GENIUS!!!!
PS. You had me at buttery.
If I wasn’t getting my hair cut and colored this afternoon, I would be making this for our spaghetti dinner tonight. I think I’m going to make it next week and have some of our tomato soup and then toasted pimento cheese sandwiches, using this bread. Yum
this looks SOOOOO delicious! buttery and yummy and just mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I dare you not to eat the whole loaf. 😉
The little air bubbles in this loaf make me so happy! Who needs bubbles in champagne when you can have a light and airy loaf of sour bread like this?
AGREED.
I am brand new to sourdough starter (just given some the other day), so I apologize if this is a silly question…but I thought sour dough starter eliminated need for yeast. Am I wrong about that?
It’s not a silly question at all! So here’s the deal: Sourdough starter can eliminate the need for yeast, but the rising time will be MUCH longer. Like, several hours or sometimes as much as a day. So if you have the time and energy to devote to that kind of commitment, you can certainly use recipes that eliminate the yeast totally (or adapt recipes that use yeast to use only sourdough starter). If you are looking for the flavor of sourdough without the long wait, a little yeast will speed things along. The sourdough flavor will be more pronounced the longer the dough hangs out and rises, so it is really what you like and are looking for.
I hope that helps and makes sense!
So I had milk that was a tad … not fresh … smelling anymore, shall we say? “What a waste,” I thought to myself, 2/3 of a gallon of milk just to dump down the toilet. There MUST be something I can do with this–just smells a bit funny, no chunks. Then I remembered a conversation I had sometime back, helping to cook for my church’s choir. Ding ding ding–sour dough bread. After all, I am sure my grandmother’s (grew up in the depression) & great-grandmother’s (raised big families through WWI & WWII) didn’t throw out the milk, isn’t that what they made sourdough bread & buttermilk biscuits with? If they did it, why can’t I?!?! Sooo, rather than make a sour dough starter that I have to leave on my kitchen counter & tend to daily *just* right, I used this recipe but rather than add the yeast to water & add in a starter, I used my milk that smelled just a bit too off to drink & it is one of the best, I repeat, THE BEST double loaf of bread I have EVER made…or eaten! Since then, I have found that the more off it smells, the tangy-ier it tastes & my friends & family prefer that, so I use the milk that smalls bad but has no chunks & it rarely makes it through the evening into the next day.
I forgot to rate this recipe….10 STARS!!!! I have recently started adding lard back into our diet & the only downside I have noticed is that greasing the bowls with lard–really any pan–can leave that brown, baked on grease streaks behind that won’t come off in the dishwasher. But that is a small price to pay really. I went & bought bowls–2.5 qt Anchor Hocking–from the thrift store specifically to bake bread in. Well, they get used for other things but the primary reason I bought them was to bake bread in, after I saw this blog post. Thanks for all you are doing here Stephie!! P.S. The lard is WONDERFUL to brush on the crust when you take the bread out of the oven in place of butter.
YOU are a woman after my own heart. 🙂
I use warmed buttermilk instead of water, add tablespoon of sugar a d the yeast to activate, sometimes I add to the dry ingredients ,shredded cheese or herbs, cinnamon sugar, garlic, whatever floats your boat , turns out fabulous every time, love the peasant bread, so so good !
So happy to hear this, Pat! Thank you for sharing!