The Art of Sourdough Baking

1) You're going to need to grow and/or order a starter! I grew mine. The first [successful] one (the starter I used in this recipe) I just put about 1/8 C. flour and 1/8 C. water in a bowl with about 1/8 tsp of commercial yeast and let it sit (covered with pantyhose to keep bugs and such out) for a while, then fed it every day or so for several days. The second one, which is still a work in process (but is coming along nicely!) I just used flour and water, now that I know more what I'm doing. :) For more info on making your own starter, see this site. You can also buy starter online from places like Sourdoughs International.



2) Take your sleeping starter from the fridge



3) Get your supplies together



This is what the starter looks like fresh from the fridge. I keep mine in an old jelly jar.



4) Add warm (not hot - too hot will kill the yeastie beasties) water and flour in approximately equal amounts (maybe a little light on the water)





How much water and flour you add depends on how large a recipe you're wanting to make. This time, I was making two loaves, so I made about 1 1/2 C. starter. 1 cup for the recipe and 1/2 cup to save and put back in the fridge for next time! It should be roughly the consistency of thick pancake batter.



Cover and place in a warm spot to grow! How long it takes will depend on the strength of your starter - mine typically takes about 3 hours to peak, but that varies a lot depending on the day: heat, humidity, etc. I usually take the starter out the night before I want to bake and feed it, then stir it down, pour some off, and feed it again first thing early in the morning, so I can keep an eye on it and catch it at the right time later that morning.



These pictures were taken when the starter wasn't quite to "peak" but it was close enough, so I went ahead and used it! Notice the little bubbles throughout the entire thing. Ideally, it's best to wait till the bubbles are a little bigger and the whole thing is very glutinous.





Once your starter peaks, it's time to mix up the dough! This is the recipe that has been hanging in our kitchen for a few months now - haha! Once you get used to what to do, you won't even really need a recipe. I doubled the recipe this time for two nice-sized loaves.



3 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 C. prepared starter
Up to 1 1/2 C. water (you'll have to judge by feel as you go... weather + the thickness of your starter, etc can really change how much water you need to add)
1 tsp. salt
1 T. butter

You can get the whole recipe, along with better/more complete instructions here. If you're going to actually make some, I'd definitely read up on it there first, cause I'm trying to be brief here. :)



Oil your bowl and place your dough in it, covered with plastic wrap and a towel. It'll need to rise a lot longer than regular yeast bread. The first rising has been taking around 6 hours for me lately. But our house is pretty warm...





I'm afraid I didn't get any pictures of the loaves rising the second time, after they were shaped! I got lazy and in a rush and was baking these at around 7:30pm or so... But they turned out really well!



Mmmm. :)



So there you go! Sourdough french bread - the real deal. It's great as toast, or for sandwiches, or alongside some soup! Victory tastes so good. :)

Sourdough!

Do you love cooking, Jewels? Why yes, yes I do!

One of my first posts when I moved over here to blogspot was on bread. I love bread. My whole family loves bread. I feel sorry for people who are allergic to wheat. *sigh* Of course, I admit that making an entire meal out of bread is not a healthy idea. Don't get me wrong, I love a balanced meal, and I don't believe in overindulging in one food group too much. But still... sometimes eating half a loaf of fresh bread by yourself is a little too appealing. Haha...

Well, about 6 or 7 months ago, I really got a hankering for some good San Francisco style sourdough french bread. See, when we lived in California, we had access to some of the best sourdough ever. Sometimes Dad would go to the Parisian factory (RIP *sigh*) and bring home a fresh, warm loaf (invariably with a hunk missing out of it). That stuff was good. Tangy, chewy, and with an irresistible crunchy crust. Slice some up, toast it, put a little butter and some of Mom's homemade peach/pineapple jam on there and you're pretty much in taste-bud heaven!

So now, living in Africa - far, far away from the land of sourdough... I decided to embark upon a journey to bring back sourdough to our house! *cue triumphant music*

It actually didn't start too well.

After a couple different well-intentioned but ill-fated tries, I finally got a decent starter to grow. Huzzah! Now to bake. My first attempt resulted in what was affectionately named "lead bread" by my dear brothers. I should have taken a picture of it. Flat and heavy doesn't really begin to describe it. But it had a great flavor... and they actually ate most of it, bad as it was. Disappointed, but not overcome, I pressed on!

I researched sourdough all over the internet... I read about the science of it, the history of it, the technique, the recipes... After several mostly-failed attempts, I finally got a recipe to rise nicely! It was a good recipe - which I got from a friend - but it was just sourdough bread, not sourdough french bread. Nice, but not what I was looking for.

Fast forward past a few months, a starter-turned-acetone incident, a new starter, a lot of learning, and several pounds of flour later, and voila! I finally got it. I now have a lovely, strong starter (and another, new one, growing as we speak), and several beautiful, sour, chewy, airy-but-still-dense-enough loaves under my belt (figuratively of course... *nervous chuckle*)

I took a bunch of pictures the last time I made some, so you can see what goes on in the wonderful world of sourdough! My next post will be a review of the process. :)

Bread

There's something extremely... satisfying... about cooking. Baking bread is one of my favorites. It's relaxing to me. Measuring out the ingredients... the flour giving a tiny puff as you scoop it out of its bin, the dusty feel under your fingers as you level off the measuring cup. The yeast bubbling up, coming to life...
























Who needs a little stress relief squishy ball when you can knead dough? The feel of the dough beneath your palm as you punch it down and continue with the calming rhythm of pressing and folding and pressing again. Shaping the loaves... the feel of the hot oven on your face... the smell - oh, the smell - as it bakes.

Simple pleasures.

All pictures © Julia Jensen