Matcha Sourdough

I love sourdough, and this matcha sourdough is no exception. It has a beautiful green swirl, pairs perfectly with my matcha butter, and is such a fun party trick to pull out next time you are baking for a crowd!

This recipe highly references my classic sourdough recipe, so if you have any questions, your best bet is to look there!

It all starts with sourdough starter

A good sourdough bread starts with a good sourdough starter. To put it simply, sourdough starter is what leavens the bread. It’s a mix of flour and water that we let sit out at room temperature to ferment, so that the wild yeast within the flour creates natural gas bubbles, which when mixed with fresh flour in a dough, creates a natural rise.

Sourdough starter is complicated, so I recommend mastering that first. You can find my guide to sourdough starter here.

HOW TO ACTIVATE YOUR STARTER

Once you have a mature and healthy starter, you want to activate it about 4-5 hours before you begin baking this recipe. I like to activate my starter with the following ratios:

• 60 grams of mature starter
• 40 grams of all-purpose flour
• 20 grams of whole wheat flour
• 60 grams of cool water

This will give you 180 grams of total activated starter, which means 120 grams to use in the recipe, and 60 grams of starter to keep for later. You want to have some leftover starter so that you can keep using it. If we use it all at once, then we’d have to make a whole starter again, and that can take up to 7 days (which um…no thank you).

What makes this matcha sourdough different

Compared to my classic sourdough recipe, this matcha sourdough substitutes out 5 grams of flour for 5 grams of ceremonial grade matcha. This is what adds to the color of the loaf, without detracting from the texture or the overall feel.
What this does do is make us evaluate the ingredients from a different perspective. Now that matcha is in the mix, we don’t want to impact the bread’s structure by lowering its gluten. That’s why we do a swirl of matcha mixed with a swirl of my traditional sourdough.

THE SEVEN STEPS OF SOURDOUGH

Here are the seven steps, or “phases” as I like to call them:

1. Activate your starter
2. Mix the dough
3. Slap and fold the dough
4. Bulk fermentation
5. Shape the dough
6. Proof the dough
7. Bake the bread!

THE INGREDIENTS FOR THIS SOURDOUGH RECIPE

This recipe is scaled to fit one small dutch oven, it’s perfectly portioned for the home baker to make two loaves! I’ll give you measurements by weight, but I’ll also give you what we call “Baker’s Percentages” where every percent value is measured by seeing the amount of flour as 100%. So for example, if the recipe calls for 100 grams of flour, and 80 grams of water, that means the Baker’s % of water is 80%. You can read more about Baker’s Percentages here.

In this recipe you will be making two loaves, for the first you will need:

• 300 grams of flour – 210 grams of bread flour (70%), and 90 grams of whole wheat flour (30%)
• 234 grams of water at 90F (78%) plus more water later for wetting your hands and shaping the dough
• 60 grams of starter (20%)
• 6 grams of kosher salt (2%)

And for the second version, the matcha version, you will need:

• 300 grams of flour – 210 g of bread flour (70%) + 85 g of whole wheat flour (28%)
• 234 g of water at 90 degrees Fahrenheit (78%)
• 5 g ceremonial grade matcha (<2%)
• 60 g of activated starter*** (20%)
• 6 g of kosher salt (2%)

How to make this sourdough

For the most detailed explanation of how to make this sourdough, refer to this sourdough recipe. Once you understand the process through that, feel free to follow this step-by-step guide for this recipe:

• Autolyse – For the sourdough side, mix together the bread flour, whole wheat flour and water until combined. For the matcha dough, whisk together the bread flour, whole wheat flour and matcha until combined, then add the water and mix. Using two separate bowls, add the sourdough to one, and the matcha dough to another. Cover both with a wet cloth and let sit for 20 minutes.
• Mix in the starter and salt – pour the starter over each of the doughs, use a wet hand and the Ken Forkish fold-and-pincher method to combine it in. Once combined, add the salt and repeat the process. Let the doughs rest for another 20-30 minutes.
• Begin the slap & folds – Pour each of the doughs onto a lightly wet surface, use damp hands to lift, slap and fold each dough. Rotate and repeat until you see the dough begin to tighten into a coil. Cover with a damp cloth, wait 30 minutes and repeat the process. Cover and wait another 30 minutes and repeat the process again. Do this simultaneously with both of the doughs.
• Begin bulk fermentation – right after finishing the third set of slap-and-folds, place the doughs in a separate clear or glass container. Cover and let rise at room temperature for 4-5 hours or until both are almost doubled in size. You can also let them bulk ferment in the fridge for 24-48 hours.
• Layering the dough – Dump the sourdough loaf onto a wet surface. Stretch it into a long wide rectangle, about 1″ tall. Using wet hands, stretch the matcha dough into a rectangle about the same size, and place it on top of the sourdough side. Dab a bit of water down the middle of the doughs in order to cut them in half with a bench scraper, you will now have two loaves to pre-shape.
• For each loaf, fold a short rectangle side down until it is 2/3 of the way across the dough. Stretch out the long edges of the rectangle to the sides, and then fold them like a book over the center of the dough. Stitch the dough, roll it over into a tight coil and let it rest for 20 minutes. Flour your surface, proofing basket and hands and do the final shape. Seal the seam with sesame seeds. Cover and let proof in the fridge overnight.
• Shaping the dough – Flour your surface, proofing basket and hands and do the final shape. Seal the seam by pinching it together with your fingers. Cover and let proof in the fridge overnight.
• Bake – Put your dutch oven in your oven and begin heating it to 500 degrees Farhenheit. 1 hour before you bake, remove one of your loaves from the oven and let it get to room temperature. When the dutch oven has been preheated for about 45 minutes, add the loaf to a piece of parchment paper, score the top, place in the dutch oven and bake. Repeat this process for your second loaf.
• Bake at 500F for 20 minutes, then move the loaf to a baking sheet and bake for another 10 minutes at 425F.