Baking With Kevin: Sourdough

Two gorgeous loaves of pain au levain on a cooling rack.
And here's the final product! I meant to take a picture of the cuts before baking, but I forgot. Next time.

Due to the outrageous demands of about three people, I did another episode of Baking With Kevin, this time about sourdough and walking through my all-time favorite recipe (including the tweaks I’ve made to it over the years I’ve been making it).

This was my first time trying out Facebook Live and other than the video being portrait, it wasn’t horrible. I could actually see peoples’ comments and questions as I was working, which was easier than the previous Google Meet-based (OK, totally calling it Meetspace from now on) episode. It’s still really weird essentially talking to myself.

I posted these to the Facebook event before I started the video, because the process takes so long, the only live demo part was dividing the dough and forming loaves. So, now you get to see them, and the video at the bottom! Lucky you.

A levain sitting in the mixing bowl waiting to get turned into bread dough
I mix up my levain in the mixing bowl, because… why dirty more than one bowl?
The inside of a mixing bowl full of shaggy bread dough.
After mixing all the ingredients together, I let it autolyse (give the flour more time to absorb the water) for an hour, which is twice as long as the recipe calls for. I’ve found it makes kneading a lot easier.
A shaggy mess of kneaded dough in the mixing bowl.
This is what my dough looks like after kneading. It should be sticky. I usually pry it out of the bowl with my hard spatula.
Freshly kneaded dough in an oiled bowl
Hey, there’s my awesome spatula! And some dough ready to bulk ferment!
A tripod, bowl with a towl over it, spatula, two brotforms and a dutch oven on my kitchen counter
Everying in its place, ready to film the episode.
Two gorgeous loaves of pain au levain on a cooling rack.
And here’s the final product! I meant to take a picture of the cuts before baking, but I forgot. Next time.

The next episode will probably be Michael Ruhlman’s sandwich bread, since so many people are baking now just to pass the time, and avoid going to the store. If I can help them get a little more comfortable making bread, I guess that’s something.

By Kevin Lawver

Web developer, Software Engineer @ Gusto, Co-founder @ TechSAV, husband, father, aspiring social capitalist and troublemaker.