Winter is here! It’s time for those bubble-all-day hearty dishes. How do you eat them? Well, regularly from a bowl, but I propose another way: out of a bread that you will be using as a bowl. This is my sourdough bread bowl recipe.
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The bread bowl, a hollowed-out loaf of bread filled with various soups, stews, or dips, has a history rooted in both practicality and culinary creativity. The concept of using bread as a vessel for other foods dates back to medieval Europe, where trenchers—thick slices of stale bread—served as plates for holding food.
These trenchers absorbed the juices from meats and other dishes and were often consumed afterward, combining functionality with sustenance. Over time, this practice evolved, and by the Renaissance, more refined versions of bread bowls were being used in various European countries, particularly in France and Italy, where they were filled with hearty soups or salads.
In the United States, the bread bowl gained popularity in the late 20th century, especially within the context of casual dining and fast-food restaurants. San Francisco’s sourdough bread bowl, often filled with clam chowder, became an iconic dish, particularly associated with the city’s Fisherman’s Wharf.
The bread bowl’s appeal lies in its rustic charm and the ability to eat both the container and its contents, offering a unique and satisfying dining experience. Today, bread bowls are a popular choice for serving various dishes, from chili to cheese dips, and continue to be a beloved culinary tradition that combines practicality with flavor.
The dough in this sourdough bread bowl recipe
Vitals
Total weight
1000 grams
Pre-fermented flour
9.0%
Hydration
69.9%
Yield
Four bread bowls
The dough
The dough for these sourdough bread bowls is a pretty standard sourdough recipe.
The hydration is on the low end (for sourdough bread) at 70%. This is to make it easier to bake all the bowls simultaneously in the oven without using a Dutch oven.
The bread contains 20% whole grains. I’ve used spelt in this case, but you can substitute it with any whole grain that you prefer and like.
If you’d like to use a higher proportion of whole grain, I’d recommend that you use a regular wheat whole grain so that you’ll have more gluten to help you keep the bread together.
Weight
Ingredient
Baker's Percentage
105g
starter (100% hydration)
19.8%
423g
bread flour
80.0%
106g
whole-grain spelt flour
20.0%
354g
water
66.9%
11g
salt
2.1%
You can play around with the formula and change proportions or quantity in the bread calculator here.
The conclusion of this sourdough bread bowl recipe
If you love sourdough bread, and who doesn’t? It’s a perfect match for almost any meal.
But in this case, it’s part of the meal. It’s the tableware.
Is it gimmicky? Yes, a bit. Is it over the top? Yes, maybe. Is it awesome? Hell yeah.
The best part is wiping it up with the bread if you make a good sauce, right? Well, in this case, you pour the sauce into the bread. That is so great.
Of course, it matters what you put in it. I usually put my very special Hungarian Goulash in my sourdough bread bowl. It’s so good!
Please share this recipe for sourdough bread bowls on social media
This is my recipe for sourdough bread bowls. If you like the recipe, please consider sharing it with like-minded bread lovers on social media.
If you make it and post it on Instagram, please tag me as @foodgeek.dk so I can see it. That would make me very happy.
The night before, make sure you feed your sourdough starter, so it’s good and ready.
Mix the dough
The next morning mix all of the ingredients: 423 grams of bread flour, 106 grams of whole grain spelt flour and And 11 grams of salt.
Mix it up.
Then add 105 grams of sourdough starter and 354 grams of tepid water.
Mix the dough until all the flour has been hydrated. Then cover it and leave it to rest for one hour.
Bulk fermentation
Perform three sets of stretch and folds spaced out by 30 minutes.
After the third set of stretch and folds, perform a windowpane test.
If the dough passes the test, put it in a bulking container and let it grow 25%. If it fails, let the dough rest for 30 more minutes and then put it in a bulking container.
To speed things up, I put mine in my proofer set to 30°C/86°F.
Then about two hours after I put my dough in the proofer, it’s grown 25%. Proceed when yours is ready.
Divide and shaping
Divide the dough into 4 equally sized pieces and preshape them into balls.
Then let them rest on the counter for 20 minutes.
Then final shape them and make them pretty.
Depending on how wet your dough is, you can shape them with your bench scraper or your hands. I decided on hands.
Put them in 16cm/6 inch bannetons and put them into bags.
Put all the bannetons back in the proofer for an hour. If you aren’t using a proofer, go for 2 hours.
Then turn on your oven to 260°C and move the bannetons to the fridge for an hour. In the oven, put an oven-proof dish and a baking steel.
When the hour is up, they are ready to bake.
Bake the sourdough bread bowls
Put the dough balls on a large peel on a piece of parchment paper.
Score them.
Then put a rolled-up towel in the oven-proof dish and pour over a kettle of boiling water.
Add the boules to the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, turn the oven down to 230°C/450°F.
Bake for about 10 minutes more. If you made them larger, go for 15 minutes.
