Canterbury Baking School

How To Make A Sourdough Sponge / Levain / Pre-Ferment

Posted on April 24th, 2020

I always like to make a sponge when I make sourdough.  Of course, you can just use your starter if you prefer.  But I find taking the extra time to make a sponge the evening before I want to bake gives a much better flavour and texture to the bread.  It makes such a difference for such little effort, why not give it a try and see how your bread turns out?

A sponge, also known as a preferment or levain, is the second of three steps in the sourdough process:

1. Making and maintaining the starter.  This takes 5-7 days initially and with care, can last for a long time.

2. Creating the sourdough sponge with starter.

3. Using the sourdough sponge to create bread.

How to Make Sourdough Sponge

It’s ever so easy to make – just take some of your ripe starter that is nice and bubbly and active, and add flour and water.  Then simply mix together until you achieve a good consistency.  The sponge should be a much looser consistency than the starter – like pancake batter, as you can see from the video below.

I’ve also provided a recipe for guidance, but you should rely more on how the mixture feels than the exact measurements.  You don’t need to make a huge amount.  It depends how much you want to bake!  For each loaf of bread, you’ll need one large ladle of sponge.  But don’t worry if you have any left over.  There are plenty of ways to use it up, such as pancakes or crackers.

Create the sponge the night before you want to make your sourdough.  Mix the starter with flour and water, cover with a damp tea towel, and leave out on the side overnight.  In the morning it should be lovely and active, with lots of bubbles, and a nice sweet smell – not too vinegary.

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