Sourdough Discard Bread (Pan con Descarte de Masa Madre)

This is the loaf to make with the discard you pour off when you feed a sourdough starter. Discard straight from the fridge is too sleepy to raise bread on its own, so a spoonful of instant yeast does the lifting while the discard brings the flavor. You get a crackling crust and a little sourdough tang, mixed in the morning and out of the oven by lunch.

There’s no kneading. Two quick rounds of stretching and folding in the bowl build all the structure it needs, and a hot Dutch oven does the rest. If you’ve never baked bread before, this is a good first loaf: it’s forgiving, and it looks like it came from a bakery.

What You’re Learning

Flavor and lift are two different jobs. A true sourdough loaf asks a lively starter to do both, which takes a day or more. Here they’re split up. The discard has been sitting in the fridge building acid and flavor, but its yeast is weak. Commercial yeast is fast and reliable but tastes of very little. Put them together and each one covers what the other lacks.

A lid is a steam oven. For the first 25 minutes the lid traps the moisture coming off the dough. That keeps the crust soft long enough for the loaf to spring up and split open along the cut. Then the lid comes off, the steam escapes, and the dry heat turns the crust deep brown and crisp. Bakeries inject steam to do the same thing.

Ingredients

Makes 1 round loaf, about 10 slices.

• 340 g (1 1/2 cups minus 1 tablespoon) lukewarm water, about 95°F
• 150 g (about 2/3 cup) sourdough discard, unfed, straight from the fridge
• 5 g (1 1/2 teaspoons) instant yeast
• 450 g (about 3 2/3 cups) bread flour, plus more for shaping
• 50 g (about 1/3 cup) whole wheat flour
• 11 g (2 teaspoons) fine sea salt

Method

1. Loosen the discard. In a large bowl, whisk the warm water, discard, and yeast together until the discard breaks up and the water turns milky. A few small lumps are fine.
2. Mix the dough. Add the bread flour, whole wheat flour, and salt. Stir with a sturdy spoon, then finish with one wet hand, squeezing the dough through your fingers until no dry flour is left. It will be shaggy and sticky. Cover the bowl and let it rest 30 minutes.
3. Stretch and fold. Wet your hand, grab one edge of the dough, stretch it up until it resists, and fold it over the middle. Turn the bowl a quarter turn and repeat, four times in all. Cover, wait 30 minutes, and do one more round. The dough will already feel smoother and stronger.
4. Let it rise. Cover and leave it somewhere warm until it has roughly doubled, looks puffy, and jiggles when you shake the bowl, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours more.
5. Heat the pot. About 45 minutes before baking, put a 5- to 6-quart Dutch oven with its lid in the oven and heat it to 475°F.
6. Shape the loaf. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured counter. Pull each edge into the center like closing a parcel, flip it seam side down, and cup your hands around it, dragging it toward you a few times so the surface tightens into a smooth ball. Set it on a square of parchment paper, cover with a towel, and let it rest 30 minutes while the pot finishes heating.
7. Score and bake covered. Dust the top with flour and cut one confident slash about 1/2 inch deep with a razor or very sharp knife. Lift the loaf by the parchment into the hot pot, put the lid on, and turn the oven down to 450°F. Bake 25 minutes.
8. Bake uncovered. Take the lid off and bake another 20 to 25 minutes, until the crust is deep brown and the inside reads 205 to 210°F on an instant-read thermometer.
9. Cool before slicing. Lift the loaf onto a wire rack and leave it for at least an hour. The inside is still cooking as it cools, and cutting early gives you a gummy crumb.

Notes

• Want more tang? Use discard that’s been in the fridge a week, or let the shaped loaf rise in the fridge overnight in a covered, floured bowl. Bake it straight from the fridge the next day.
• No bread flour? All-purpose flour works. The crumb is a little softer and the dough a little stickier, so use 10 g less water.
• Weigh it if you can. Cup measures for flour can be off by 20 percent either way, which is the difference between a dough that holds its shape and one that spreads. More on that in a cup of flour isn’t a cup of flour.
• Add-ins. Fold in 1 cup grated sharp cheddar and 2 chopped pickled jalapeños, or 2 tablespoons chopped rosemary, during the second stretch and fold.
• Keeping it. Store the loaf cut side down on a board for 2 days, or slice and freeze it. Toast slices straight from the freezer.