Robust Recipes

Welcome to my recipe website.

Here, you'll find a curated collection of my all-time favorite recipes, each one meticulously tested and refined over the years.

This site is intentionally basic, fast and completely ad-free. Each recipe or the entire website is printable.

Beyond just instructions, I strive to share the "why" behind each dish, offering insights into the underlying theories and practical tips so you can confidently adjust and personalize to your taste or your kitchen.

Ingredients (2 loaves of bread)

1. Leaven

   • Sourdough starter from the refrigerator, last fed at least a week ago
   • 100 g water
   • 100 g whole wheat flour

2. Dough

   • 800 g white wheat flour
   • 200 g whole wheat flour
   • 680 g water
     • Can be pre-divided into 120 g and 560 g
   • 20 g salt

Roles of Ingredients

Whole wheat flour adds flavor. White flour provides gluten, which makes the dough easier to handle. You can adjust the proportions to your taste, but 20% whole wheat and 80% white flour is a classic formula.

The amount of water affects the size of air pockets in the bread. For wheat flour, 65–80% hydration is common. Too little water can lead to dry, poorly risen bread. Too much makes the dough difficult to work with and may prevent it from rising properly. Whole wheat flour can absorb more water.

Tools

Many of these items are included in baking kits like this one.

1. Baking paper
2. Baker’s knife
3. Square blade or bread scoring tool
4. Kitchen scale
5. Oven that heats to 230°C+ and a way to verify it (thermometer or oven display)
6. Heat-resistant bowl for water (e.g. ceramic)
7. Heat-resistant surface for baking
8. Cling film
9. Banneton for each loaf — 2 are ideal
   • Alternatively, use a bowl of similar size lined with a towel

Recipe

The bread is made over three days, though actual active time is minimal. The schedule below uses relative timing — you can shift the times by a few hours for convenience. With more experience, even relative intervals can be adjusted.

Day 1 – Reviving the Sourdough Starter

18:00

Take the sourdough starter out of the fridge, feed it as usual, and leave it at room temperature.

22:00

Place the fed starter back in the fridge.

Day 2 – Preparing the Dough

8:00

Mix the levain — a portion of the starter used for baking.

Combine 25 g of sourdough with 100 g of water and stir to dissolve. Add 100 g of whole wheat flour and mix.
Place the mixture in a jar or bowl, cover with cling film (poke a small hole for air to escape), and leave at room temperature. The container should allow for the leaven to double in size.

12:00

In a large bowl, pour 560 g of water and add all of the levain. If it floats, that’s a good sign, but it’s fine if it doesn’t. Stir to mix.

Add both flours and mix directly in the bowl. It won’t become uniform yet. Do not add salt!

12:30

Gradually add the remaining 120 g of water, about 20 g at a time, mixing thoroughly between additions. Add all the salt during this step.

Cover the bowl loosely with a cling film or use a damp towel.

13:00

Wet your hands. Without removing the dough from the bowl, slide your hands underneath, stretch one side upward, and fold it over. Rotate the bowl 90° and repeat for all four sides.

Video

This is stretch and fold, which builds the gluten network and dough surface tension.

14:00

Repeat the stretch and fold.

15:00

Repeat again.

At this point, optional ingredients like cheese, dried fruit, or herbs can be added. These make the dough harder to handle, so it’s best to master the base recipe first.

After the final fold, the dough should stretch like mozzarella. If not, note it for next time — perhaps adjust hydration based on your flour. Do not fix it now.

15:30

Flour a clean work surface — rice flour is best for dusting bannetons, tables, or hands, as it doesn’t absorb into the dough.

Turn out the dough and divide into two parts using a baker’s knife. It may stick, but will come free if moved with the knife.

Lightly stretch and shape each portion into a circle. Using stretch-and-fold movements, form into tight balls. Unlike earlier folds, you can use more than four folds here.

Leave the balls on the table seam side up. Do not flip them.

Prepare floured bannetons or bowls lined with cloth.

16:00

The dough balls will have spread slightly. Reshape them again with light folds from the sides toward the center.

Flip them over and use a baker’s knife to tighten their shape.
Video from 2:20

Transfer each ball to a banneton, seam side up (smooth side down), using your hand and a baker’s knife.

This step builds surface tension.

Cover bannetons with towels.

18:00

Check the dough with a gentle press. If it springs back slowly and leaves a slight indentation, it’s ready.

Transfer covered bannetons to the refrigerator.

Cold retardation halts yeast activity but allows bacteria to continue developing flavor, acidity, and digestibility.

Day 3 – Baking

16:00

This is an ideal baking time. You can bake as early as 8:00 AM, though flavor develops more with longer rest. If you wait too long, up to the 4th day, the dough may lose its oven spring.

Place a bowl of water in the oven and preheat to 230°C. Wait 10–15 minutes to fully heat.

Remove one banneton from the fridge. Lightly flour the surface of the dough.

Prepare your baking surface or pan. Cut a square of baking paper and place it over the banneton. Put your hand on top, fingers spread, and invert the banneton onto the table. Remove the banneton and cloth, leaving the dough on the paper.

Transfer the dough and paper to the baking surface. Trim excess paper and dust with flour.

Score the dough with a blade, ideally at least 1 cm deep to create openings. Cross scores are optional.
Scoring video

If the dough tears or resists, the blade angle may be wrong or the dough over-proofed.

Place the tray in the oven above the steaming bowl. Bake for 50 minutes at 230°C.

Remove the water and bake for another 5 minutes to crisp the crust.

Cool the loaf on a wire rack for at least 1 hour. Cutting too early may make the bread appear undercooked — it needs to "settle".

Repeat the process with the second loaf.

Adjustments for Next Time

• Bread is soggy after baking
  • You can still toast it. Next time, bake longer than 45 minutes with steam.
• Bottom is burnt
  • Use more flour underneath the dough.
• Crust is too hard
  • Shorten the final crust-forming bake (without steam).
• Poor rise
  • Possibly a weak starter. Feed it for another week.
    • For a stronger boost, feed it once in the evening and leave at room temperature overnight, or even feed it twice (evening and late night).
  • Temperature may be too cold or hot. Adjust timing for the Day 2 16:00–17:30 stage.
  • Experiment with ±5% water content.
• Scoring marks are unclear; poor oven spring
  • Improve your scoring technique. Watch tutorials on YouTube.

Sourdough Starter Tips

Use whole grain flour. Mix 50–70 g of flour with the same mass of water (1:1 ratio) in a glass jar with room to double in size. Cover with pierced cling film.

Each day, transfer a portion to a clean jar and add new flour and filtered water in a 1:1:1 ratio (e.g. 60:60:60). Discard the rest or use in pancakes.

Repeat this for about a week. Once the starter reliably doubles in volume for three consecutive days, it’s ready.

Store in the fridge and feed weekly. It can survive a month unfed during vacations. The starter is a robust ecosystem of yeast and bacteria that suppresses harmful organisms. It must be starved for over a month to kill it.

Alternative methods use fruit or hops for inoculation — try those only if the simple method fails, possibly due to local microbial conditions.

If you abandoned starter for a really long time and it develops the black alcohol on the top - it is ok, it is just very hungry. If it develops bright colored moss - then it is truly dead, throw it away and start over.