Sourdough French Bread Recipe | Perfect for Making Garlic Bread

This sourdough “French” bread is soft and fluffy on the inside and perfect for making garlic bread, sub sandwiches, po’ boy sandwiches, or homemade French bread pizza.

Recipe:

Sourdough French Bread

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No-Nonsense Sourdough Ebook

Today I’ll be showing you how to make sourdough French bread a soft fluffy baguette inspired loaf of bread which is probably invented in Louisiana to make PoBoy sandwiches but I love having this bread on hand to make garlic bread or French bread pizza here’s how to make it

Add 300 G of water to a mixing bowl add to that 14 G of honey you could also use an equal weight of white sugar this will add a little bit of sweetness and also some softness to the loaf then add 14 G of olive oil 10 G of salt

And 50 g of milk the small amount of milk and oil will help add to the softness of the bread just like the honey then add 100 G of active sourdough starter I took 25 G of starter out of the fridge the night before then I fed

That 50 g of bread flour and 50 g of water and by the morning I had 100 G risen and ready to use I’ll just take the 25 G of starter I have left over and put that back in the fridge to use for next time then stir everything together

To dissolve the starter and the salt into the liquid then add your dry ingredients I’m using 50 g of whole wheat flour and then 400 G of white bread flour for this recipe you could easily replace the whole wheat flour with more bread flour if you wanted to

Then just give the flour a stir into the liquid to form a dough it should take just about 1 to 2 minutes of mixing keep mixing until all of those dry bits of flour go away and you end up with a Shaggy dough that look something like

This the dough won’t hold together very well at this point but that’s what our rest periods and stretches folds are four so go ahead and cover up the dough and then let it rest for 30 minutes at room temperature a half hour later it’s time for stretch and fold number one of

Three so take an edge of the dough with your hand you can see it’s holding together better already stretch it up into the air and fold it over the top of the dough go around the bowl like this stretching up and folding over do this

About 12 to 16 times until you feel the dough start to tighten up and resist your stretching then you can just leave the dough in the bowl cover it up with a kitchen towel and let it rest for another 30 minutes then do another set of stretch and folds you’ll feel the

Dough is a little bit smoother this time rest for 30 minutes on the counter then do one final set of stretch and folds this time the dough should feel even smoother and more welldeveloped after the last set of folds flip the dough over so the smooth side is facing up

Then cover up the dough and let it rise on the counter for about 4 to 8 hours at room temperature this step is known as the first rise or bulk fermentation 4 and 1/2 hours later my dough had risen to about double in size and it was

Really puffy to the touch that’s how I know it was ready to shape when your dough looks about like this move on to the shaping step sprinkle some flour onto your counter and then flip out your dough so the smooth side is against the flour and the sticky side is facing up

Then press out the dough with your fingertips you can stretch you can press whatever you need to do you’re getting the dough into a large rectangular shape like this don’t worry too much about preserving the air that’s in the dough you can knock most of it out the spread

Will end up light and fluffy but it doesn’t need any large holes once your dough is rectangular split it down the middle as evenly as you can with a bench scraper then stretch out each piece of dough into its own rectangle this will make it easier to evenly roll each piece

Into an oblong loaf shape to give these pieces of dough their final shape put one onto a flowered surface with the Sticky Side facing up then take one of the long ends of the dough and start rolling it onto itself just like this your goal here is to roll the dough into

A tight cylinder with a seam on one end that you crease closed it’s pretty much as if you were starting to shape a baguette but then you decided to stop once you got to the hard part for this French bread that’s pretty much all you

Have to do so roll both pieces of dough into tight cylinders like this and if you end up with a seam on one end that won’t close very easily just pinch it with your fingertips like this until it closes now it’s time to prepare these two dos for their second rise or their

Final proof I like to do this on a sheet pan lined with one sheet of parchment paper just lay each piece of dough directly onto the parchment paper with the seam side facing down and the smooth side facing up adjust each piece with your fingertips so they look as even as

They can in both length and width and sprinkle the tops with a little bit of bread flour to provide a non-stick barrier then cover these up with a kitchen towel and let them proof at room temperature for about 2 to 3 hours now 30 minutes before you’re ready to bake

Your bread preheat the oven to 450° F and place a metal cake pan or pie pan into the bottom rack of the oven you’ll use that later to create steam after exactly 2 hours of proofing my two dos are looking puffy and they’re ready to bake as far as scoring goes you don’t

Need to do anything too fancy French bread is scored a bunch of different ways a few diagonal slashes like this across the top of the dough should be good if you’re cutting this bread up later into slices for garlic bread or to have with your dinner you won’t even

Notice the score marks anyway so I’m just putting five diagonal slashes right across the top of each piece of dough and just like that it’s ready for the oven Slide the entire sheet pan into the middle rack of your oven and then get about a Cup’s worth of boiling or super

Hot water and pour it directly into that metal pan that you have on the bottom rack that will produce steam in your oven giving your bread a better crust bake with steam for 15 minutes at 450° F then check on your bread it’s got kind

Of a pale color at this point so remove the steam tray and then continue baking at the same temperature for another 10 to 15 minutes until the bread has the color that you’re looking for after the bread is fully baked remove it from the

Oven and place it on a wire rack to cool if you’re serving this bread fresh I recommend just letting it rest for about 20 to 30 minutes and serving it slightly warm butter will melt into this warm bread like no one’s business like I said in the beginning the crumb in this loaf

Is soft and fluffy thanks to the small amount of honey oil and sugar that we added to the dough the crust is also a little bit on the crisp side the flavor is deliciously complex and more on the mild side in terms of sourness and this

Is my go-to type of loaf to make when I want to make my own homemade garlic bread you can also make your own homemade version of those crazy frozen french bread pizzas that I’m sure a lot of you have had just pop them under the broiler for about 5 to 7 minutes and

You’ve got amazing garlic bread or French bread pizza click the link below for the full printable written recipe and I’ll see you in the next video