When I started my sourdough journey, I felt like I was feeding starter and taking care of dough almost every day of the week. I knew I needed to streamline this process if this was going to be sustainable. I started implementing weekly bake days and it has been so helpful to bake everything we need for the week in one 24 hour span. Yes it’s a lot. If you are just getting started maybe start with just 1-2 breads at a time and then add on from there.
I have found meal planning for my family works best if I plan Friday – Thursday. On Thursdays I sit down and map out our dinners and grocery needs and from there I can outline what bread we might need for the week also.
For our meal plan this week I decided we needed to restock
*links to all of my favorite discard and active starter recipes are HERE
Bakers Timeline
Thursday Night 8pm – Do a large sourdough feeding. For this week I did a large feeding of 300g starter/300g bread flour/300g water. I recommend splitting this into 2 separate jars 150g feeding each.
Friday Morning 8am – This part can feel a little overwhelming on your first week so my advice is take it one dough at a time. This is the order I usually do this in.
- Pull out your kitchen aid mixer and start the pizza dough, while the pizza dough is kneading in the mixer pull out a large bowl and mix your artisan loaf, cover with a shower cap and let rest.
- When the pizza dough is done in the mixer, add it to a large bowl to rise.
- Next, start the sandwich loaf in the mixer. Then move that into a large bowl to rise.
- Finally move onto the bagels in the mixer. I like to set timers on my phone for stretch and folds. At this point it’s probably time to do your first stretch and fold on your artisan loaf.
- The Bagels sit for 30 minutes in the mixer covered with a towel and then knead for another 8 minutes so do another set of stretch on your artisan loaf during this time
- When the bagels are done add them to a bowl and cover with a shower cap.
*PRO TIP use a sticky note on the top of the plastic on each bowl so you remember which dough is what.
BULK RISE – Dough can take a different amount of time to rise depending on temperature in your house so make sure to watch the dough not the clock.
12-1pm – Check your dough. The sandwich loaf is usually the first to be ready. It rises and then rises again in the loaf pan. It might be ready to shape at this time. I absolutely love these loaf pan liners for sandwich loaves they make them look both pretty and make getting the loaf out of the pan so easy.
4pm – TURN ON YOUR OVEN
- FIRST, The sandwich loaf should be ready to bake at this point so get that in the oven now to bake according to the recipe.
- NEXT, Let’s prep the Pizza Dough for dinner tonight, I par bake the crusts according to this recipe, which requires about an hour to fluff up on cookie sheets and then baking. It makes topping the pizzas super quick and easy.
- Once you have the pizza dough resting in the cookie sheets move on to the artisan loaf. It should be ready to shape. Once shaped put it into a banneton basket or bowl lined with parchment paper and pop into the fridge covered with a shower cap. I like to give my artisan loaves at least 1-2 hours in the fridge since it helps make my scoring more exact and gives a higher oven spring.
- Once the sandwich loaf is finished baking, move onto the bagels if you have enough time before dinner. You might need to par bake your pizza dough first and move to the bagels after dinner.
- I like to shape the bagels and then let them rest about 30 minutes so they fluff back up. Once they are fluffy start boiling them according to the instructions and bake with toppings. I like to use individual pieces of parchment paper so I can dip that straight into the water for easy transfer when boiling.
Remember that this schedule should work for you so play around with it but it is an example of how I bake all in one day and don’t have to think about bread again until the following week.
