Victory Bread: A simple sourdough bread with no store-bought yeast

Victory Bread is a really simple bread, leavened only with a sourdough starter.  The name comes from a cookbook from The Great War, when flour was rationed.  The idea was that bread would be only half white wheat flour, and something else would substitute for the other half.  Recipes used whole wheat, corn, potato, rice, and other flours for that second part.

This bread was made with all-purpose white and whole wheat flours, and has a nice nutty and sharp taste.  Great with butter and marmalade!

No starter, and no yeast?  No problem!  There’s yeast everywhere, including on your flour, and the lactobaccillus that make sourdough... well, sour... are also very common.  You can start a culture and refine it through steps to just have the most active yeast and lactobacillus strains in it, over about a week.  Then you can maintain it and start making breads.
King Arthur Flour Sourdough Starter Recipe


Ingredients
Preferment:

• 45g whole wheat flour
• 10g sourdough starter
• 45g warm water

Bread:

• 250g all-purpose white flour
• 250g whole wheat flour
• 400g warm water
• 10g salt

Instructions

1. Preferment: 45g whole wheat flour, 45g warm water, 10g sourdough starter, stirred together and covered, allow to work 12-24 hours.
2. 250g all-purpose white flour, 250g whole wheat, 350g warm water, and the 100g of preferment above are combined in a bowl the day after the preferment is started.  Mix together so that no dry flour remains, and let stand covered for 20 minutes to rest.
3. Knead dough together, adding 10g salt, and another 50g of water.  Let rest 30 minutes.
4. Knead dough for a minute, and let rest 30 minutes.  Repeat this knead and rest two more times.
5. Gently form dough into a loaf, in lightly oiled loaf pan, cover and let rise at room temperature until ‘fluffy’, about 1 1/2 times the original size.   This takes 2-3 hours for my starter.
6. Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.  Tent the pan with aluminum foil, leaving room for the bread to rise while baking.
7. Bake for 20 minutes covered.  Remove the tenting foil, being careful of hot steam, and bake another 25 minutes, until center temperature is 200 degrees F, and the crust is a nice dark brown, like an old penny.
8. Remove from the oven, and let cool on a wire rack for a few hours before slicing.