Sourdough Potbread

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups water
½ teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 cups of cake wheat flour

Mix everything very well ( this dough does not get kneaded ) in a glass bowl with a lid. Close the bowl and let the bread dough sit for 24 hours before baking. 

I let it stand at room temperature until the dough has doubled in volume.  Then put the bowl in the fridge for the remainder of the 24 hours.

Preheat your cast iron pot with a lid – with a volume of approximately 2 litres in the oven at 220°C for about 30 minutes. Do not put anything in the pot ( No oil or spray and cook is needed – the hot pot will basically sear the bread and it will just fall out when it is ready )

Take the hot pot out of the oven remove the lid – be careful not to burn yourself! Add the dough – straight from the fridge into the pot. I use a silicon spatula ( that you use for cake dough ) and just loosen the sides of the dough in the bowl. Then carefully tilt the bowl above the pot to let the dough fall into the pot – you do not want to stir it too much and remove too much of the air bubbles in the dough. The dough will rise a little bit in the pot . Put the lid back on the pot and put it back into the oven.

Bake for 20 minutes at 220°C, remove the lid and bake for another 20 minutes still at 220°C. The bread should sound hollow when you knock on the bottom of the bread.

Let the bread cool completely before slicing – it is a very moist bread and it tends to make doughy clumps and it will look as if the bread was not baked properly. 

( It is very important to have the lid on the pot for the first 20 minutes of baking to keep the moisture high so that the bread dough can expand a little bit before the crust is set )

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