How To Turn Any Recipe into a Sourdough Recipe

Once you’ve been down the sourdough rabbit hole you may never come out.

You’ll want to turn EVERYTHING into a sourdough recipe.

Your famous chocolate chip cookies?? Oh yeah, they are getting some starter added to them.

Your scrumptious yeast rolls?? Why not turn them into a sourdough recipe for easier digestion?!

Holiday pies??? Yes you can!! Put some sourdough in those babies!

But how?

It’s not as difficult as it may seem.  The more you learn about the science of baking the easier it will be but even if you aren’t there yet, I have a pretty sound method of turning every recipe into a sourdough recipe.

Before I break down the process though, we’re going to go over some very basic science behind the reasons why I do what I do.

First, let’s talk about starter.

We know that starter is just flour and water. For the purpose of converting recipes a sourdough starter that is 100% hydration is easiest to work with.

What does 100% hydration mean?

It just means that you feed your starter equal amounts of flour and water.

Now that we know your starter is 100% hydration it is safe to say that for every 100 grams of starter you have 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water.

This is important to know because you are adding that extra water and flour to whatever recipe you want to convert. Some recipes are a little more finicky about the extra water or flour (think low hydration pastry recipes like pie crusts and biscuits) and others aren’t finicky but the extra flour and water still needs to be accounted for in the recipe.

The next thing to take into consideration is the length of time you ferment (raise) the dough.

As you know sourdough is not a fast process. And when you convert a yeast recipe you need to assume that the recipe will take as long or longer than a typical sourdough recipe.

As a rule I pretty much try to ferment anything for 8 hours minimum (with the exception of lean, rustic loaves) but some rich breads may need longer.

Also, you don’t technically have to ferment things like cookies or biscuits. If you are just looking to use up some discard but don’t want to ferment it, go for it! But if you do ferment it, it will be easier to digest.

Don’t forget about the fact that sourdough starter is yeast.

Sourdough starter IS yeast, just wild yeast.  This means that it may change the texture of some finished products like cookies might possibly become a little thicker (cakey?) because of the extra leavening and pie crust might become even flakier. So if you’re wondering why things might be a little different after baking it could be the extra yeast (leavening) that was added to the recipe.

So with all that in mind this is the following process I use to turn any recipe into a sourdough recipe:

1. Write down the original recipe– writing down the recipe as is helps to keep track of your adjustments so you don’t forget your math.
2. Take that original recipe and convert it to gram measurements– I know, I know, grams again?? But it really is the most accurate way to bake, especially when converting a recipe. (You can get a super affordable scale here, or check out this post about all the tools I love and use.) So go ahead and google how much a cup of flour (or milk or oil etc) weighs in grams then multiply that by whatever the recipe says. Example: 1 cup of flour weighs about 120 grams. If your recipe calls for 4 cups of flour you would multiply 4 x 120g = 480g total flour needed.
3. Now that you have it in grams add the starter– the amount of starter you add is kind of a personal choice depending on what you want from the recipe.  I like to start with 100-150g of starter because it’s easy to work with the numbers, I usually have that much to spare, and it does an adequate job of raising my dough. Once you decide on the amount of starter to add, write it in the recipe.
4. Subtract the flour and water from the starter– now that you have starter included in the recipe you must subtract the amount of flour and water in the starter from the other flour and liquid in the recipe. Example: you added 100g of starter which means you must take away 50g from the flour total and 50g from the liquid total.
5. Mix it all up and adjust!– now it’s time to test the recipe you just wrote. If you make adjustments by adding more flour or liquid remember to weight them and write them down!
6. Ferment-if you are choosing to ferment the dough it will be your call on how long to ferment it for.  If it is an enriched, yeasty dough you want it to be double in size which could take 8 or more hours. If it is a lean rustic dough, it may only take 4 or so hours and only be 30-50% increased. If it is a recipe that doesn’t need to be risen (cookies, pie etc), it’s all up to your personal preference.

Here is a full example for you:

Original Recipe:

2 1/2 cups milk

4 tablespoons sugar

1 egg

5 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons salt

6 tablespoons honey

3 tablespoons butter

Converted to grams:

2 1/2 cups > 612.5g milk

4 tablespoons > 48g sugar

1 egg

5 1/2 cups > 704g flour

2 teaspoons > 12g salt

6 tablespoons > 126g honey

3 tablespoons > 42g butter

I like to round all of these numbers up or down according to the type of recipe.  If it is a soft enriched dough I often round up on flour and down on liquid because they tend to be such soft doughs that take a long time to knead anyway. 

Then you add the starter, remembering to subtract the flour and liquid from the total amounts to account for the starter.

This is the recipe rounded with starter added and flour/liquid adjusted:

500g milk (rounded down with 75g subtracted to account for the starter)

40g sugar

1 egg

650g flour (rounded up with 75g subtracted to account for starter)

12g salt

120g honey

40g butter

150g starter

So that is what your final test recipe would look like! 

Next we would mix all of that up and see how we like the way the gluten is forming, the texture of the dough and if all looks well we would move on to fermenting it!

This is clearly a very rich dough with all of that butter, egg, sugar, honey and milk in it so I fermented this one for 8-10 hours with another 6-8 hour proofing time.

I hope this helps you to convert all of your wildest dreams to sourdough! If you have any questions at all please reach out in the comments here and ask! Somebody else may have the same question and you could help them out by asking. 

Also if you like video help, head over to Instagram and check out the highlight called “Converting” that is saved there.  I walk through a whole recipe in video form there.

And if you need more sourdough ideas be sure to check me out on Pinterest!