Pain au Levain

French-Style Sourdough Bread

Preparation info
  • Makes

    1

    large boute-shaped loaf
    • Difficulty

      Easy

Appears in
Nick Malgieri's Bread

By Nick Malgieri

Published 2012

  • About

Preparing an adaptation of French pain au levain requires some advance planning. Beginning with a starter that you’ve already maintained for a while, it needs to go through at least two preliminary stages of fermentation. Depending on the temperature of the room, it can take up to 24 hours from the first feeding of the active starter to the baked bread. Most of the time is concentrated in the mixing, shaping, proofing and baking of the final dough. The final proofing time of the form