Sourdough Bread Bowl Recipe

Whip up these delightful sourdough bread bowls with just four simple ingredients: sourdough starter, bread flour, water, and salt. This easy-to-follow recipe yields four personal sized bread bowls, perfect for serving your favorite hearty soups or thick stews.

5 from 1 vote

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 45

Fermentation Time 18

Total Time 19

Ingredients

350 g water
100 g active sourdough starter
500 g bread flour
12 g coarse sea salt

Instructions

Make The Dough:

In a large mixing bowl, combine 350g warm water with 100g of active starter until mostly combined.
Add 500g bread flour to the bowl and mix until a shaggy dough forms. Knead the dough with your hands until all the shaggy bits are incorporated. Sprinkle 12g salt over the dough.
Cover the bowl and set aside for 45 – 60 minutes.

Stretch And Fold:

Uncover the bowl and using damp hands, grab the dough and gently pull it until the flap is long enough to fold over itself, then fold the flap, rotate the bowl 90 degrees, and repeat 3 more times, this is considered a set of stretch and folds.
Recover the bowl, and set it aside for 60 minutes.Repeat the stretch and fold process 3 times over 3 hours, for a total of 3 sets of stretch and folds each followed by a 60 minute rest.

Bulk Ferment:

Complete a fourth and final stretch and fold then cover the bowl and set aside for 3 hours to finish the bulk ferment. It is important to keep the dough bowl somewhere warm to encourage the microbes to work quickly!

Shape:

Observe your dough, at this point, the dough should have risen in the bowl, and have a smooth surface with visible bubbles. If the dough is domed in the bowl it is ready to work with, if the dough is flat it may need more time in the bulk ferment.
Uncover the dough and transfer to a lightly floured surface or countertop. Use a bench scraper or knife to section the dough into 4 equal portions.
Form each of the portions into a tight dough balls by folding it into itself.
Generously dust each ball with rice flour and place them seam side up in a towel lined bowl or banneton.

Prove And Cold Retard:

Prove the sourdough bread bowls covered in their bowls or bannetons for 2 – 3 hours before placing in fridge to cold retard for up to 3 days. I have small bread bags that I use, but in a pinch you could place your bannetons or bowls on a baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. If you want to bake it right after proving, you’re welcome to, but the flavor is better after resting in the fridge.

Bake:

Place one oven rack on the oven floor, and place a cast-iron skillet on that rack. Add 4 cups of water to the skillet.
Then place a second oven rack in the lower third of your oven, usually you’ll need to place it in the second from bottom slot in order to clear the skillet. Place your baking stone or baking steel on the rack.
Preheat the oven to 450f, with the baking stone in the oven for at least 45 minutes.
Once the oven is fully preheated, turn your sourdough boules out of the proofing bowls onto a sheet of parchment paper. Score each bread bowl to allow for expansion.
Quickly, but carefully, open the oven and using a pizza peel or the parchment paper as a sling, place the sourdough onto the heated baking stone and bake uncovered with the water-filled skillet for as 30 minutes. If required, remove the skillet, and continue baking until the crust has reached your desired color, usually another 5 or so minutes.

Notes

Safety Tips

Any time we are playing with high heat and water or steam, we need to be very careful. Here are some ways to reduce the likelihood of injury or damage to your oven and bakeware.

Always, always wear good quality high heat oven mitts. I personally prefer the ones with the silicone grip on the outside when I'm working with liquids because they are waterproof, while my fabric ones are not.
Exercise caution when using water in the oven burns aside, water can damage bakeware and your oven.
Use a pizza peel if you have one, it can make transferring the sourdough loaves to the oven quick and easy, reducing the likelihood of burns and keeps more steam in the oven.

Expert Tips

I don’t have bread bowl sized bannetons and because I already have too many banneton baskets I am tapping into a banneton alternative. Cereal bowls I picked up at a local dollar store and lined them with tea towels worked great. If you’re looking to do the same, choose bowls that are narrow at the bottom and have steeper sides, this will help to keep the shape of your bread bowls.
This recipe is written with an open oven bake, but if you don’t have a pizza stone or baking steel, the bread bowls can be baked in a dutch oven, but you’ll likely need to work in batches.
I bulk ferment and proof my bread dough at room temperature, but if you’re in a warm place (warmer than 70-72f), your rising times will need to be shortened.