Sourdough French Bread

Bobby Tran turns fifty on August 3, 2024. Half a century. I woke up at 5:30, made Vietnamese coffee, sat on the back porch, and looked at the smoker and thought: fifty years ago I was born in a refugee camp in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, to a woman who had crossed an ocean with an empty stomach and a stubbornness that became my inheritance. Fifty years later I'm sitting on a porch I own, with a smoker I've tended for twenty years, sober for fifteen, a grandfather, a father of three, a man who nearly drowned in the Gulf of Mexico and nearly drowned in a bottle and survived both.

The party was Saturday. Lily organized it because Lily organizes things. The entire family came. Tyler and Jessica from Midland (Jessica at six months, glowing). Emma and Daniel with Ava (who walked into the backyard, saw the smoker, and said "HOT!" with the enthusiasm of a child who has learned her favorite word). Linh and Richard. Mai, who sat in her chair and looked at me with an expression that might have been pride or might have been disbelief that her son had survived to fifty. Bill came with a cake — yellow, chocolate frosting. Kevin brought a sourdough shaped like the number 50. Mr. Washington brought whiskey for everyone else and La Croix for me, which he always does. James smoked a whole hog, which took sixteen hours and was the most ambitious thing he'd ever attempted. It was magnificent — the skin crackled like thunder and the meat was tender enough to pull with a fork.

Lily gave a toast. She said, "My dad is the most stubborn man I know. He is also the most patient. He taught me that those things are not contradictions — they are the same thing. Stubbornness is just patience with an attitude." Everyone laughed. I laughed. She was right.

Mai gave me a gift: Huy's watch. The one Bobby had given Tyler years ago for a promotion, but Tyler had returned it because it was too important to keep casually. Mai had been holding it. She put it in my hand and said, "Your father wanted you to have this." The watch is gold, battered, the band is cracked. Huy wore it every day in Houston. It doesn't keep accurate time. I put it on and I will never take it off.

Fifty years. The brisket was excellent. The hog was better. The cake was fine. The bread was art. The family was everything.

Kevin’s loaf shaped like the number 50 stopped the whole backyard — people put down their plates just to look at it before they cut in. That bread was art, and I meant it when I wrote it. I asked Kevin for the method, and what he does is a straightforward sourdough French bread: long cold ferment, high heat, a good score. If you’ve got an active starter and a Saturday morning with nothing pulling at you, this is the one — it’s the kind of bake that earns its place on a table next to sixteen hours of whole hog.

Prep Time: 30 min (plus 12–16 hrs ferment) | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: ~17 hrs | Servings: 12 slices

Ingredients

1 cup (240g) active sourdough starter (100% hydration, fed 4–8 hrs prior)
1 1/4 cups (300g) warm water (about 80°F)
3 1/2 cups (440g) bread flour, plus more for shaping
1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp honey or sugar (optional, feeds the starter)

Instructions

Mix the dough. In a large bowl, whisk together the sourdough starter, warm water, and honey until combined. Add the bread flour and salt. Mix with a dough scraper or your hands until a shaggy dough forms with no dry flour remaining. Cover and rest 30 minutes (autolyse).
Stretch and fold. Over the next 2 hours, perform 4 sets of stretch-and-folds every 30 minutes: wet your hand, grab one side of the dough, stretch it up, and fold it over. Rotate the bowl 90° and repeat until you’ve gone around all four sides. Cover between sets.
Bulk ferment. After the final fold, cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap or a shower cap and refrigerate for 10–14 hours (overnight works perfectly).
Shape the loaf. Remove dough from the refrigerator and turn it onto a lightly floured surface. Gently flatten into a rectangle, then roll it into a tight baguette-style log about 14 inches long, pinching the seam closed. For a shaped number or decorative form, divide dough and roll into two logs, arranging them on parchment into your desired shape.
Proof. Transfer the shaped loaf (on parchment) to a baking sheet. Dust lightly with flour, cover loosely with a kitchen towel, and let rise at room temperature 1–2 hours, until the dough is puffy and springs back slowly when poked.
Preheat oven. Place a Dutch oven or heavy baking vessel in the oven and preheat to 500°F (260°C) for at least 45 minutes before baking.
Score and bake. Using a sharp lame or serrated knife, score the top of the loaf with one long slash at a 45° angle (or decorative pattern). Carefully transfer the parchment and loaf into the preheated Dutch oven. Cover with the lid and bake 20 minutes. Remove the lid, reduce heat to 450°F, and bake another 12–15 minutes until the crust is deep golden brown and the internal temperature reads 205–210°F.
Cool completely. Transfer to a wire rack and cool at least 45 minutes before slicing. The crumb continues to set as it cools — cutting too early makes it gummy.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sourdough French Bread — The Loaf That Looked Like Fifty