Baking Bread – My First Loaves of Sourdough! (With Recipes)

Rustic Sourdough Bread

One of the most wonderful aromas to ever come out of a kitchen has to be freshly baked bread! I have such wonderful memories of my Dad being in the kitchen, kneading fresh dough and baking loaves for our family to enjoy! My Dad’s freshly-baked bread rarely lasted through the evening, as we would keep grazing into the kitchen and slicing yet another piece. Although I was too young to remember, my Dad often recalled how he was letting a loaf cool on the kitchen table when he turned around to find that our golden retriever puppy had devoured every last crumb!

Ever since I can remember, I have had a deep love for baking. Cookies, cakes, brownies (to name a few). However, I was always intimidated by baking bread. Something about the proper combination of the water temperature working with the yeast always concerned me.

After we decided to go organic, it became very important to me to learn to bake and cook from scratch as much as I possibly could. Believe me, I still depend on organic bread from the grocery store quite often! I’ve tried baking some basic loaves of bread over the last few years, and I am truly enjoying the learning process. It’s a beautiful sight to peek into a bowl of rising dough and actually see that it is working!

When I walk into bakeries and see such beautiful loaves of artisan breads, it makes me even more excited to try new bread recipes! Recently, I’ve been wanting to try sourdough, brioche and croissants. I love looking at all of the beautiful breads on Pinterest, and last week I made my first sourdough starter from GracefulLittleHoneyBee.com.

Today was a big day! The sourdough starter looked and smelled ready — right on schedule according to the recipe! So this morning I found a Rustic Sourdough recipe from King Arthur Flour and was quite pleased with the results! I found the bread to be soft on the inside with a nice crunchy crust on the outside. The bread went very well with olive oil and Italian herbs!