The Best Rosemary Garlic Sourdough Bread
This beginner-friendly rosemary garlic sourdough bread recipe simplifies the process, stripping away most of the fancy techniques. If you’re new to sourdough baking and want a straightforward approach to creating a delicious rosemary garlic loaf, this method is perfect for you. It focuses on the basics, ensuring that you can achieve a satisfying result without feeling overwhelmed by intricate details or specialized equipment.
Read all the way through to understand the basics of sourdough bread-making before making this rosemary garlic sourdough bread loaf!
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This rosemary garlic sourdough is an excellent way to start adding flavour to your basic sourdough loaf. Bursting with fragrant rosemary and garlicky goodness, it pairs wonderfully with a variety of dishes or simply makes the BEST slice of toast with lots of butter!
This was one of the most popular loaves during my micro-bakery days and is one of my favourite loaves along with seedy sourdough. It is simple yet packed with so much flavour.
It makes a great garlic toast for Italian dishes, a soup dipper, bread for a sandwich, toast, croutons, all of the good stuff!
Bronwyn’s Sourdough Notes
This is your loaf! I’m here to share my tips, experience, and what’s worked for me — but sourdough is wonderfully flexible. Whether you’re a seasoned baker or just starting out, feel free to experiment and make this recipe your own. There are a bajillion ways to make a great loaf of sourdough, and my goal is simply to help you find the methods and rhythms that suit you best.
Water: If you can drink it, you can bake with it. I’ve used city, tap, well, and filtered water — all with great results. Don’t overthink it.
Salt: Use whatever fine salt you have. Unrefined salts like Himalayan or Redmond Real Salt support fermentation beautifully, but table salt works fine too. Don’t let people tell you your salt isn’t good enough.
Sourdough Starter: Start bread with an active, bubbly starter for best results. Learn more about your starter here.
Temperature: Dough rises best around 23–26°C (73–79°F) dough temperature.
Colder = Slower fermentation (6-12 hours)
Warmer = Faster fermentation (3-6 hours)
Adjust with warm or cool water depending on the season.
Flour: I always do a blend of standard all-purpose flour and freshly-milled whole grain flour as my whole wheat flour. Use whatever flour works for you.
Hydration: In summer, I use cooler water and slightly less. In winter, warmer water and a touch more can help balance fermentation speed.
Autolyse: This step involves holding back salt and sourdough starter at the mixing stage. I prefer a simpler variation called fermentolyse — I mix in the starter right away but hold back the salt for 30–60 minutes. This short rest gives the dough time to hydrate and relax, especially important when using whole grain flour, which takes longer to absorb moisture.
Where can I source freshly milled, whole-grain flour?
If you’re living in a city, you can mostly likely find a bakery or fancy grocery store that sells fresh-milled whole-grain flour. If you’re living in the country and you can source whole-grains, you may want to consider milling your own flour. You can start without making a large investment by using a powerful coffee grinder or blender that you already own. A step up would be purchasing a KitchenAid grain mill attachment.
If you’re really enjoying working with fresh-milled whole-grains and you have a reliable source of grain, you can also consider a Harvest NutriMill which is the one I use almost everyday and love both for its beauty and practicality.
Get your Harvest NutriMill when you’re ready to invest using this link and my discount code BRONSBREAD20 at checkout to get $20 off your order!
The Feud Between Garlic & Sourdough
Dehydrated garlic is less potent which means it imparts the flavour without disrupting the fermentation process too much.
Materials You’ll Need
- Medium-Sized Mixing Bowl: A heavy set ceramic mixing bowl would work best.
- Bowl Cover: Anything that covers and seals the bowl and covers your loaf for final proofing. I use these reusable elastic bowl covers.
- Dough Whisk (optional): It is cleaner to get things started with a dough whisk but it’s definitely not necessary. I like using a wooden spoon or my hands.
- Plastic Bench Scraper: I find this tool very handy for cleaning and scraping the dough out of the bowl. It can also be used for dividing dough and pre-shaping.
- Metal Bench Scraper: I use this tool for dividing dough, pre-shaping, and cleaning the table. Not essential though, as the plastic bench scraper can serve similar purposes, but I like using both.
- Kitchen Scale: I prefer sharing most of my recipes in grams so there is less room for error as I’m not in the kitchen with you! Everyone scoops things differently.
- Banneton Basket: I like a 10″ basket for my artisan loaves.
- Razor Blade, Bread Lame or Sharp Knife: I haven’t found a bread lame I really like so I just use razor blades as is.
- Dutch Oven: For baking your artisan loaf. It is the best vessel for trapping steam and giving your dough a nice strong rise.
- Cooling Rack: For cooling down your loaf.
Ingredients
White Flour: I use Rogers all-purpose flour, nothing fancy.
Whole-Wheat Flour: I use fresh-milled organic whole-grain flour but any whole-wheat flour from the store will get the job done.
Active Sourdough Starter: An active sourdough starter is bubbly with large bubbles, a domed top, double to triple in size, sweet and sour smelling, and floats in water. A perfectly active starter is essential for the perfect loaf but it’s not essential to make sourdough bread. You can work with the starter you have even if it’s not perfectly active, just expect inferior results.
Rosemary: I use organic dried rosemary but fresh is always best.
Garlic: I use dried minced garlic. It’s flavourful, looks nice, and provides a more consistent product vs. using fresh or roasted garlic.
Salt: I use Himalayan sea salt but any salt is good. Avoid highly processed table salt. The more mineral content, the better.
Water: Any drinking water can be bread-making water.
How To Make Rosemary Garlic Sourdough Bread
Mix – Add water + starter to your bowl, mix until dissolved. Add white flour, whole wheat flour, garlic and rosemary. Mix until no dry bits. Rest 30–60 min (autolyse).
Add Salt – Add salt with a splash of water, squeeze in until fully integrated and dissolved. Rest 30 minutes.
Strengthen – Perform a series of stretch and folds. Let rest for another 30 minutes.
Strengthen (pt.2) – Perform another series of stretch and folds.
Bulk Ferment – Let the dough rest until doubled in size, jiggles, and has a domed surface. (Warm 4–6 h; cool 8–12 h.)
Shape – Pre-shape into a ball and let it bench rest for 20–30 minutes. Final shape into an oval log shape. Flour your banneton basket and place your loaf in it, seam side up.
Proof Options
Same-day bake: cover and let rest on the counter at room temperature until risen and puffy (1-3 hours).
Next-day bake: cover and place in the fridge 8–24 hours for enhanced flavour, structure, fermentation & easy scoring.
Score & Bake
Dutch oven: Preheat your oven to 500°F with the Dutch Oven inside for 30-60 minutes. Gently remove your loaf from the banneton basket to a large piece of parchment paper by flipping it over so seam side is down. Once preheated, lightly flour the surface of your loaf, spread it around, and score. Remove the hot Dutch oven from the oven and then carefully place your loaf into the hot Dutch oven, cover, and return to the oven. Bake for 20–25 minutes covered and then 10-15 minutes uncovered, until dark golden crust is achieved.
Cool – 1 hour minimum before slicing to ensure the crumb has fully set and then enjoy with a generous amount of butter!
Notes
Keep an eye on your loaf while it’s baking with the lid off. Every oven is different and you may find it gets dark too quickly at 425F. Feel free to reduce the temperature and extend the time if you feel that gets a more even crust.
Watch Me Make Rosemary Garlic Sourdough Bread
Simple Rosemary Garlic Sourdough Bread
Ingredients
- 250g All-purpose Flour
- 125g Whole-wheat Flour
- 250g Water
- 150g Active Starter
- 10g Salt
- 1/2 tbsp Dried Rosemary
- 1/2 tbsp Dehydrated Garlic Flakes
Instructions
- Mix – Add water + starter to your bowl, mix until dissolved. Add white flour, whole wheat flour, garlic and rosemary. Mix until no dry bits. Rest 30–60 min (autolyse).
- Add Salt – Add salt with a splash of water, squeeze in until fully integrated and dissolved. Rest 30 minutes.
- Strengthen – Perform a series of stretch and folds. Let rest for another 30 minutes.
- Strengthen (pt.2) – Perform another series of stretch and folds.
- Bulk Ferment – Let the dough rest until doubled in size, jiggles, and has a domed surface. (Warm 4–6 h; cool 8–12 h.)
- Shape – Pre-shape into a ball and let it bench rest for 20–30 minutes. Final shape into an oval log shape. Flour your banneton basket and place your loaf in it, seam side up.
- Proof Options –Same-day bake: cover and let rest on the counter at room temperature until risen and puffy (1-3 hours).Next-day bake: cover and place in the fridge 8–24 hours for enhanced flavour, structure, fermentation & easy scoring.
- Bake – Preheat your oven to 500°F with the Dutch Oven inside for 30-60 minutes. Gently remove your loaf from the banneton basket to a large piece of parchment paper by flipping it over so seam side is down. Once preheated, lightly flour the surface of your loaf, spread it around, and score. Remove the hot Dutch oven from the oven and then carefully place your loaf into the hot Dutch oven, cover, and return to the oven. Bake for 20–25 minutes covered and then 10-15 minutes uncovered, until dark golden crust is achieved.
- Cool – 1 hour minimum before slicing to ensure the crumb has fully set and then enjoy with a generous amount of butter!
new ebook
getting started with sourdough
and the “why” behind each step
Whether you’ve never touched sourdough or you’re tired of every recipe being different and not knowing why – this guide will help clear things up.
Learn the basics, avoid common beginner mistakes, learn why you’re doing what you’re doing and finally bake an edible loaf!
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