Sourdough Bread

Sourdough is a crusty, tangy bread that can be intimidating to make at home. The loaf begins with a starter, often called a "mother," which is a mixture of wild yeast and Lactobacillus bacteria that feeds on flour and water. A sought-after starter may be passed from friend to friend or down through the generations of a family. And caring for a starter is a long-term commitment, requiring you to occasionally feed it to keep the microorganisms alive. According toFloyd Mann, who runs the baking site The Fresh Loaf, "It's not a sentient being, but people do treat it almost as a pet. If you neglect it and it dies, you feel very bad. I've had to remind myself, 'It doesn't feel any pain!'" Once you have the starter formed, you can mix the dough and finally bake your loaf. F&W's guide holds your hand through all the steps of making this labor-intensive bread and spotlights our favorite recipes.

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Gluten-Free Sourdough Starter

This robust gluten-free starter combines white rice flour for its mild flavor and bouncy texture, which adapts well to many gluten-free bread recipes, and teff flour, which brings an earthy, almost wheat-like flavor to doughs, and a high protein content that helps build structure in bread. It needs a full week of feeding to become active before it will properly leaven bread.

You Can Make Sourdough Starter With a Packet of Yeast

A helpful hack to stretch out store-bought yeast, if you’ve got it, and kickstart your sourdough journey.

Queso Fresco Sourdough Biscuits With Chimichurri

This recipe bygame-changing baker Bryan Ford, author ofNew World Sourdough ,uses sourdough starter discard, the delicious and versatile byproduct of making sourdough bread. It gives these cheesy, chimichurri-laced biscuits a tangy flavor. Trimming the edges of the rolled biscuits gives them a higher rise and an even square shape, but you can bake with folded edges for a rustic look.

How One Sourdough Starter Traveled Across Brooklyn—and Beyond

Tracing the journeys of tiny tubs of flour, water, and hope.

Sourdough Country Bread

This sourdough bread recipe is ideal for beginners and expert bakers alike. First, alwaysstart with a happy starterthat has been fed at regular, successive intervals before you start to bake. The day before you plan to bake, feed your starter twice for the best results—once in the morning, and again in the evening, about 8 to 10 hours before you’ll start the recipe. This dough is based on a levain—basically just sourdough starter that’s been bulked up with a bit of extra flour and water. Let the levain rise for a couple hours, then stir in more water and the remaining flour to form the dough. A few more simple steps and your dough will be ready for the oven: Work in a bit more water and salt, fold it occasionally as it rises, shape it into a boule and give it a final rise and slash the dough before baking. The toughest part? Waiting for your bread to cool before slathering it with salted butter.Read More: 15 Bread Baking Tools Every Home Baker Needs

Sourdough Crackers

Conventional wisdom has it that every time you feed your sourdough starter, you discard some of that starter. But if you save it instead, you’ll soon have enough for these crunchy crackers (you can keep sourdough starter discard in the fridge for up to five days). Even without toppings, these easy-to-make snacks boast plenty of flavor, thanks to the combination of starter and fine-ground cornmeal.Be sure to roll the cracker dough to the thinness specified, since that will help the crackers turn crisp when baked. To scale down the recipe, simply reduce all the amounts by half to form a single brick of dough rather than two.

More Sourdough Bread

Birote (Guadalajaran Sourdough Bread)

I find nothing more satisfying than recreating the unique breads of Latin America in my own kitchen. I especially love when the bread is meant to be stuffed with savory fillings and drowned in spicy salsa—in Mexico, thetorta ahogadais just that. Birote (pronounced bee-row-teh) is a crunchy, darkly baked sourdough bread said to have a flavor unique to the environment of Guadalajara, but if you grab your favorite beer and some limes, you’ll come pretty close!