Squirrelly Girl Sourdough Bread — Flavors, Inclusions & Pairings
The Flavor Profile
This is our classic loaf: a round boule built on 500 g of bread flour at about 80% hydration, baked in a Dutch oven until the crust is deeply golden and crisp. The crumb is soft, chewy, and open, and the overnight cold ferment gives it a gentle, rounded tang rather than a sharp sour bite. That mild, wheaty flavor is exactly what makes this loaf the perfect blank canvas — it welcomes bold inclusions without fighting them, and its sturdy crumb holds chunky extras without falling apart.
How Inclusions Fit This Recipe
Make the dough exactly as the recipe directs. Your two chances to add extras are the fourth and final set of stretch-and-folds — sprinkle the inclusions over the dough and fold them through — or a quick lamination after bulk fermentation: stretch the dough into a thin sheet, scatter the filling across it, fold it up, and carry on to pre-shaping. Amounts below are for this loaf's 500 g of flour. Keep your total between 10% and 30% of the flour weight (50–150 g), and keep pieces pea-to-dime size.
The Best Inclusions for This Loaf
Aged Cheddar & Chives
100 g aged cheddar (20%) cut into 1 cm cubes, plus 5 g snipped chives (1%). Fold in at the final stretch-and-fold set. The cheddar melts into savory pockets against the mild crumb, and the chives keep it bright. This is the loaf that disappears first at any table.
Roasted Garlic & Rosemary
One whole head of roasted garlic (about 50 g, 10%), cloves squeezed from their skins and roughly smeared, plus 5 g fresh rosemary (1%), chopped. Laminate this one so the garlic spreads in ribbons instead of clumps. Roasted garlic turns sweet and mellow in the oven — none of the harshness of raw garlic, and no risk to your fermentation.
Toasted Seed Blend
75 g mixed seeds (15%) — sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, and flax in any mix you like — toasted until fragrant, then folded in at the final set. Save an extra handful: after shaping, roll the loaf gently over a damp towel and then through the seeds so the crust bakes up coated and crunchy.
Kalamata Olive & Lemon
75 g Kalamata olives (15%), pitted, halved, and patted very dry, plus the zest of one lemon. Fold in at the final set. Briny olive against sourdough tang is a classic for a reason, and the lemon zest lifts the whole loaf. Because olives bring their own salt, you can trim the recipe's 10 g of salt back just slightly if your olives are especially briny.
Pickled Jalapeño & Cheddar
40 g pickled jalapeños (8%), chopped and patted dry, plus 75 g cheddar (15%) in small cubes. Fold in at the final set. Warm heat, melty cheese, chewy crumb — this is the grilled-cheese loaf of your dreams, and it makes extraordinary toast for eggs.
Cinnamon Raisin Swirl
100 g raisins (20%), soaked in warm water for 15 minutes and drained well. Laminate the dough and scatter the raisins over it with 30 g sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, then fold and shape with the ends tucked in so the filling stays inside. The swirl perfumes every slice — this is the loaf in our photo above, and it wants nothing more than butter.
Toasted Walnut
60 g walnuts (12%), toasted and chopped coarse, folded in at the final set. Earthy, rich, and wonderful with cheese. If the crumb takes on a faint purple-grey tint where it touches the walnuts, do not worry — that is a natural reaction and completely harmless.
Three Variations Worth Trying
The seeded-crust boule. Skip folding seeds inside and just coat the outside, as described above. You get the classic loaf's clean flavor with a crunchy, nutty shell that shatters when you slice it.
Part whole-grain. Swap 100 g of the bread flour (20%) for whole wheat or rye flour. The loaf turns nuttier and a shade tangier, the crumb a touch heartier — a small change that tastes like a different bread entirely, especially with the walnut or seed inclusions above.
Two mini boules. Divide the dough in half at shaping and bake two smaller loaves instead of one large one — one to eat, one to give away. Give them a few minutes less in the uncovered part of the bake, and watch for deep golden color.
What to Pair It With
Soup night. Thick slices of the plain loaf are made for dunking — tomato soup, French onion soup, chowders, and chili all want this crust. The cheddar-chive and jalapeño-cheddar versions are practically a meal beside a bowl.
Grilled cheese and melts. The sturdy, chewy slices hold up to fillings and crisp beautifully in a pan. Plain, cheddar-chive, and olive loaves all make exceptional grilled cheese.
Breakfast. Toast it for eggs any style, avocado toast with chili flakes, or a breakfast sandwich. The cinnamon raisin swirl loaf needs only salted butter and a hot drink.
Boards and spreads. On a cheese board, this loaf carries aged cheddar, brie, and blue without competing. At the table, pass it with salted butter, or a little dish of olive oil and balsamic for tearing and dipping.
Ready to Bake It?
Every variation above starts from the same four-ingredient dough. Get the full recipe — ingredients, stretch-and-folds, the overnight cold ferment, and the Dutch oven bake, step by step.
And if your starter needs to exist first — or the one in your fridge has gone quiet — ours is a flaked dehydrated starter that ships free to Canada, the US and the UK with an activation guarantee, so your flavor experiments start from a loaf that actually rises.
Questions? Just message us — we'll get back to you, we promise. No AI chatbots here, just real people who bake sourdough every day.