Sixteen Loaves: from banana bread to rye sourdough
The sixteen loaves
1. 1Banana breadbaseline60% 2. 2The same loaf without the bananabanana out, 165 g water in60% 3. 3The sugar comes out164 g sugar out60% 4. 4Yeast takes over the liftNew loafbaking powder out, 6 g instant yeast in60% 5. 5The egg comes outegg out, water up by its 75 g60% 6. 6The oil comes out80 g oil out60% 7. 7Kneadingstirring becomes kneading60% 8. 8Shapingpressed in becomes shaped in60% 9. 9More water, 60% to 70%water 240 g to 280 g70% 10. 10Folds instead of kneadingkneading becomes stretch and fold70% 11. 11The cold nightcounter proof becomes fridge proof70% Optional side loafScoring, steam, and the Dutch oven · a side trip off Loaf 11. You never need it to finish. 12. 12Starter instead of yeastyeast out, 80 g starter in70% 13. 13RyeNew loaf280 g of the wheat becomes rye70% 14. 14The folds come offfolding stops70% 15. 15High hydration, 70% to 85%water 280 g to 340 g total85% 16. 16The long coldNew loaf12 hours cold becomes 2485%
How Sixteen Loaves works
You already know how to make banana bread. That is Loaf 1.
Sixteen loaves later you are making a long-ferment, high-hydration rye sourdough, and at no point did you take a leap of faith, because every loaf changes exactly one thing from the loaf before it. One ingredient, or one technique. Never both, never two.
Every one of them is a real loaf you eat. There is no loaf that exists only to get you to the next one.
What never changes
Four things are frozen across all sixteen loaves.
| Frozen | Value | Why | | ----------- | ------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Total flour | 400 g | Every percentage in every loaf is a percentage of this one number, so the loaves are comparable | | Salt | 8 g, which is 2% | Salt is the one seasoning decision in bread and 2% is the answer. Settle it once and it stops being a variable | | Vessel | one 9 x 5 inch (23 x 13 cm) loaf pan | No shaping tension to lose, no 500F (260C) lid to lift, no scoring required | | Oven | 375F / 190C | One setting, sixteen breads |
You never need a Dutch oven to finish this course. The endpoint is a pan bread. Scoring, steam and cast iron are a real skill and they get their own optional branch off Loaf 11, but they are not a step on the way to anything here.
The one rule
Change one thing. Bake it. Bake it again. Then move.
One good loaf is luck. Two in a row is a skill.
If you change two things and the loaf comes out worse, you have learned nothing, because you cannot tell which change did it. That is not a discipline problem, it is an information problem, and it is why most people's baking stops improving after about five loaves.
Every gate in this course is something you look at. Times always come with a temperature, and the time is context for the look, never the instruction. "Risen by half at 75F / 24C, usually about 2 hours" means watch the dough. A recipe that just says "rise 2 hours" is telling you about its own kitchen, not yours.
The thing nobody tells you about hydration
Banana bread pours. Sourdough sits there in a lump. So the road from one to the other must run downhill in water, right?
No. Banana bread's 220 g of banana carries 165 g of water, and its two eggs carry 75 g more. That is 240 g of water on 400 g of flour: 60% hydration, a perfectly ordinary, slightly stiff bread dough. A lean bread dough and a banana bread batter sit at the same hydration.
What makes the batter pourable is 41% sugar and 20% fat. Sugar dissolves into the water and competes with the flour for it. Fat coats the flour proteins so they cannot link into a network at all. Take those two away at the same water and you do not get a batter, you get the stiffest dough in this whole course. That happens at Loaf 6 and it surprises everyone.
So the water rule here runs the other way from what you would guess:
60% to 70% to 85%. Hydration only ever climbs, and it never once steps back.
The sixteen loaves
| # | The loaf | The one thing that changed | Hydration | Leavening | | -- | -------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- | --------- | ----------------- | | 1 | Banana bread | baseline | 60% | baking powder | | 2 | The same loaf without the banana | banana out, 165 g water in | 60% | baking powder | | 3 | The sugar comes out | 164 g sugar out | 60% | baking powder | | 4 | Yeast takes over the lift | baking powder out, 6 g instant yeast in | 60% | instant yeast | | 5 | The egg comes out | egg out, water up by its 75 g | 60% | instant yeast | | 6 | The oil comes out | 80 g oil out | 60% | instant yeast | | 7 | Kneading | stirring becomes kneading | 60% | instant yeast | | 8 | Shaping | pressed in becomes shaped in | 60% | instant yeast | | 9 | More water | water 240 g to 280 g | 70% | instant yeast | | 10 | Folds instead of kneading | kneading becomes stretch and fold | 70% | instant yeast | | 11 | The cold night | counter proof becomes fridge proof | 70% | instant yeast | | 12 | Starter instead of yeast | yeast out, 80 g starter in | 70% | sourdough starter | | 13 | Rye | 280 g of the wheat becomes rye | 70% | sourdough starter | | 14 | The folds come off | folding stops | 70% | sourdough starter | | 15 | High hydration | water 280 g to 340 g total | 85% | sourdough starter | | 16 | The long cold | 12 hours cold becomes 24 | 85% | sourdough starter |
Read down the hydration column and the whole argument is visible: eight loaves at 60%, six at 70%, two at 85%, and not one step backwards.
Two bits of sequencing that look arbitrary and are not
Sugar leaves at Loaf 3, before yeast arrives at Loaf 4. At 41% sugar the dissolved sugar pulls water away from the yeast osmotically. Yeast slows noticeably above about 10% sugar, which is why commercial bakeries keep special strains for sweet doughs. Put ordinary instant yeast into a 41% sugar batter and it makes very little gas, very slowly. That version would bake a brick, and every loaf here is one you eat.
Loaf 1 uses baking powder, not the baking soda most banana bread calls for. Soda needs an acid to work against, and in banana bread that acid is the banana. Pull the banana at Loaf 2 and soda would have nothing left to react with, so removing one ingredient would have silently forced a second change. Baking powder brings its own acid, so it survives Loaf 2 untouched and leaves only when we choose, at Loaf 4.
That is what a one-variable course costs. You pick Loaf 1's ingredients for what they let you do at Loaf 6.
Where to start
Loaf 1. Even if you have made sourdough before. The point is not the banana bread, it is baking every loaf twice and the habit of moving one variable at a time, and that habit is the entire reason this works.
Bake it twice. Then move on.