Hello everyone,
I am incredibly uneducated on sourdough and the art of baking it, but my partner has decided this will be her next hobby, so I want to do my part to support her.
I’m trying to gather all of the equipment needed so I can create a sourdough care package and gift it to her for Christmas to help her get started.
Selfishly, I want to give her the best chance of succeeding and enjoying the art of baking so that she’s happy, and my stomach is happy as well.
Over Black Friday, I bought a Staub Cast Iron 4-Quart Round Cocotte, which I’m hoping will be a great tool for sourdough, but I haven’t gotten anything else yet.
What other equipment do I need to get her started and make baking an enjoyable experience?
I appreciate any advice!!!
by ComradeRam
31 Comments
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Please don’t let mine see this
I love my Brod and Taylor Sourdough Home. Most people wouldn’t buy one for themselves because it seems unnecessary and extravagant, but if they get it as a gift they love it and use the shit out of it. I know from experience if you know what I mean.
For cleaning the outside all you have to do is make a baking soda paste and use a soft scrubber! Took me a while to learn that but it works like a charm
Digital kitchen scale, bread lame
Controversial but I suggest getting a packet of dehydrated starter. Making a starter from scratch would mean she could be weeks-months from actually baking bread. If she’s dead set on making her own starter she still could but she could be baking and learning while she waits for it to mature.
Other things I use, clear glass bowls, long thin silicone spatulas, shower cap bowl covers from Amazon, parchment sheets and a silicone sling.
4 qts! You’re gonna have tiny breads everywhere! Cute cute.
* dough scraper (I quite like my plastic one, rounded edges. I’ve never really needed one with a ruler measurements on it)
* Small digital kitchen scales that measures in grams up to at least 3 (if not 5) kg. To at least the precision of a gram. Getting scales that measure things to two decimal points tend to not have the range that you need to actually weigh stuff plus the container
* Stone ground strong flour from a local-ish well reviewed mill (just to appear a fancy) A bag of white and whole wheat *strong flour* atleast 1.5kg. honestly, you’ll probably end up buying the cheapest strong flour for a while. It’s a bit of a waste while you’re learning to go through premium flour. You don’t want to commit to buying 25 kilos yet. You can also get a bag of 00 flour so she’s got the option to make a ciabatta-esque thing/pizza crust
* You can get a razor specifically for bread, a **lame** you score your dough just before you bake to control the “burst”
* a pizza stone (You’ve already got Dutch oven so that might be enough for now anyway, but you can make sourdough pizza dough and obviously make pizza)
* A banatone ostensibly a thing that matches the shape and size of the thing you’ve already bought (I don’t actually use one but it is an accessory many use)
* An IOU to buy her a starter from a bakery nearby or one that you find online that you think she will find meaningful. Then you don’t have to keep it alive before you gift it and she can start looking after it and feeding it when she’s ready after the holidays.
I’m going to assume she’s got some pretty nice silicone spatulas and an obscenely large mixing bowl. Sometimes large items people prefer to choose themselves in order to go with a theme or they have particular preferences. I’m giving you ideas. I don’t suggest you go with all of them but you could. Some of the joy of the journey is to slowly research and gather things as you need them.
Some suggestions:
Digital scale & conversion chart
Proof baskets banneton ( round & oval) with linen that can be used in basket or as a liner
Bench scraper for shaping dough
Lame/razors for scoring dough
Parchment paper
Wide mouth quart jar for starter & dough wisk
Pullman pans ( a game changer for baking square loaves of sandwich bread)
A binder/ notebook to keep favorite recipes
She will love experimenting with her new hobby!
Any cast iron dutch oven is useful for sourdough baking, but her setup is going to be dependent upon what her gear can do. For example, enamelled dutch ovens have the flat lid on top. Some sourdough dutch ovens are designed “upside down” so the flat “lid” is the bottom where the dough sits, and these can be easier to use for bread baking but can’t be used to cook other dishes. With nornal dutch ovens, you’ll need a silicon dough sling or some parchment to gently drop the dough into the dutch oven. Also worth mentioning, a Staub enamelled dutch oven is nice if she’s going to use it for other stuff like cooking, but generally the correct tools for bread baking are cheap. For example, adding slate tiles or a pizza stone to the oven can drastically improve bread baking performance, and those are like less than $10.
If she doesn’t have these already, bread baker’s essentials: plastic dough scraper (plastic scraper is better than steel scraper for surfaces that scratch), baker’s scale, lame (razor with handle), appropriately sized Cambro with straight walls and volume measurements to ferment the dough in
The thing I miss most and don’t have yet is a bench scraper. It’s on my Christmas list.
A couple of small-ish glass jars for her starter – you can just save old jam glasses or something.
Nice to have: a Danish whisk, a banneton, a bread lame. (If you gift her a banneton, you can go the extra mile and also get her a bag of rice flour, that’s not for baking, just for sprinkling inside the banneton so you don’t need a lot).
I just bought a proofing ‘couche’ I did sourdough for a while and got bored maybe get one of these so she can make you baguettes 🤗
If you live somewhere with a Buy Nothing group on FB, you can get her a sourdough starter from a neighbor for free; people are generally quite generous esp if they have to discard some anyway. Or check FB Marketplace. Ours has tons of them offered for $5.
Someone also said long thin silicone spatulas. This is a must. So is a kitchen scale!
“For my girlfriend,” said the sourdough-loving lover.
If you’re putting together a whole care package, you could also include flour? I have a “starter food” jar with a mix of all purpose, whole wheat and rye flours so I don’t have to go pulling everything out for feeding.
Other people have mentioned the digital scale, if you don’t already have one. I have a proofing box (especially useful if your home is as cold as mine is.) Bannetons, while not exactly necessary, are very nice to have, and really make it feel kind of fancy.
My sister is ordering a really nice recipe binder on Etsy for me to write all of my favorites in, something like that might be nice to have in there too?
I’d go with a Lodge cast iron Dutch oven. Silicone spatulas, bannetons, scale and a straight sided jar for the starter. Maybe even some large straight sided vessels for mixing and bulk fermenting.
One of my favorite items I use for sourdough is a $12 Tovolo sandwich spreader I got from Amazon. I use the hard end to mix my starter after I’ve fed it and I use the rubbery end to scrape down the sides of the jar before putting the lid on so it keeps the jar super clean and makes it easier to tell when it’s peaked or starting to fall. Starter all over the jar is a pet peeve of mine and gives me the ick lol.
King Arthur dehydrated starter may be a good little item to toss in, just in case her own starter doesn’t take off as fast. dehydrated starter is much more convenient and takes off way quicker! they also sell a cute glass jar i keep mine in (:
I recently bought a new dutch oven for my sourdough. But I bought one with a shallow base and then a tall domed lid. Same internal space but so much easier to place the dough in the base
I got this plus a sourdough making kit from Costco and I love both
You’re a good person. These are very good, and your girlfriend will love it!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻⭐️
I would suggest a batard shaped bread oven. I bought one for boules and regret it because the extreme variation in slice size and don’t want to dropp $70 more dollars on a new one.
Also agree with everyone else on dehydrated starter. I got mine from Etsy and I would not have started if I would have tried to make a starter from scratch.
If you’re willing to spend a little, the Mac superior bread knife is FANTASTIC. I’ve used so many bread knives and it’s worth every penny. Sourdough can be so frustrating to cut
Get her a bouquet of *flours* to try out
The Tartine Bread book
Superb choice! I love my Staub and I use it for more than sourdough.
How about starter storage solution? During COVID, I treated myself to a tray of tall Weck jars. I only needed two for the starter, so I used the rest of the jars in the tray for sugars, popcorn, panko or other frequently used dry ingredients.
https://weckjars.com/product/905-cylindrical-jar/
Invest in the Weck 3/4L jar for the starter, the straight sides and the style of the lid are perfect for starter.
Different shaped bannetons.
I use a seed warming mat inside a cardboard box as a proofing box. It’s essential to my process!
I use the same pot to bake bread! It works great and it will cook any other great meal you think of.