100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread Recipe

First of all, you will need to have a starter that is ready to use. If you don't know how to make one yourself and are interested in learning how, then you will want to visit this site here. I have had a lot of success with the method used in that link and the directions were very simple to follow. I will reiterate the need for patience with your starter though. The author of that page shows that his starter was ready to bake with after about a week but it took my own starter about two weeks before it was doubling in size and ready to use.

Once your stater is ready, you can begin baking!

Here's what you'll need:

• 1/2-3/4 cup of starter
• 2 tablespoons of oil
• 2 tablespoons of honey
• 1 cup water
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

You will need to add the honey, oil, starter, and water to your mixing bowl and get that mixed up well. You can then start adding the flour a little bit at a time in order to ensure that everything gets mixed up without clumping. The last 1/2-1 cup of flour will require you to get messy and use your hands. The flour at this point should be a little sticky but not sticky enough that it doesn't keep its form.

Continue kneading for 3-5 minutes. Remember that it's important to keep the dough relatively sticky because the wheat flour will continue to soak up more water from the dough over time and if you are not careful you could end up with a very dry dough.

After the kneading you will then need to place the dough in a ball shape with the sides tucked under itself in an oiled bowl. Once that is done, cover the bowl and let the dough rise until it doubles in height. With sourdough, it's hard to say how long you will need to wait. When I first started this recipe I had to wait 4 hours for the dough to rise but as my starter got better over time, the rise time decreased.

After the first rise, you will need to softly punch the dough down and then form it into a loaf and place it in your lightly oiled bread pan to rise a second time.

The second rise should take about half the time of your first so you can plan on preheating the oven according to that. The oven should be set to 350. Once the bread has risen you can put it in to bake.

After about a half hour you can check the loaf. If it looks like the crust has cooked too much you will need to lower the temperature next time. If it still looks doughy then you can raise the temp the next time you bake. The bread will need to bake about 15-30 more minutes.

Make sure you let the bread cool down before trying to remove it from the pan or it could tear the bottom.