Sourdough baking is a wonderful yet almost forgotten skill. If you're patient and feed your starter often, you will be rewarded with some of the best bread you have ever eaten! I live in a cold, breezy farm house and love the smell of slow-rising bread. Sourdough is much healthier than regular breads and is a great excuse for warming up the oven in the wintertime.
There are many websites with instructions for how to start your own starter from scratch. If you want a really good starter for free, you can send a SASE for Carl Griffith's 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter at carlsfriends.org. There are many websites with great sourdough starters to purchase too. Starting sourdough from scratch is very rewarding, but working with an established starter is easier when you are getting started. I enjoy kitchen experiments. The photos at the top are where I compared 6 white starters, 5 whole wheat starters, and 1 rye. Each of them tastes distinctive.
Care of your starter:
Like any pet, your sourdough starter requires some care and maintenance. It is forgiving of mistakes but will perform best for you with regular care. All your starter needs is flour and water. Some folks add a variety of ingredients to their starter. You are welcome to do this as well, but it is not needed.
Each time you feed your starter, you can double the amount of your starter. If you received a couple of tablespoons of starter from me today, scrape the starter out into a larger container, add a couple of tablespoons of room temperature or slightly warm water. Stir in the water to mix it well. Add a couple of tablespoons of flour, stir it in a little. It is fine to leave it lumpy. In fact, the sourdough likes it this way. I keep my starter around the consistency of pancake batter. You can keep it thicker or thinner or experiment and see how your starter likes it the best.
Sourdough starter must be fed daily if kept on the counter at room temperature. This works well if you are baking with it on a daily basis. If you bake less often, the starter may be kept in the fridge and fed about once per week. It will sleep in your fridge happily for a while, but to bake with it, you need it active and alert. Pull your starter out of the fridge a few days before baking and feed it 1-3 times per day. Small, frequent feedings work best for your starter.
*If you use a wide-mouthed container, it will be easier to get the starter out and wash the container. You can use a solid lid screwed on very loose, a cloth lid, a coffee filter, a paper towel, etc. held down securely with a rubber-band. Sourdough will produce gas bubbles that need to escape. Do not brew kombucha, jun, or water kefir near your sourdoughs as these cultures can cross-contaminate one another.*
Baking with sourdough:
Now that you have fed your sourdough for a few days, it is probably bubbling up to the top of its jar within a few hours of feeding it. It is now ready to use for baking! Your sourdough will work at its own pace, which you may or may not enjoy at first.
Below are links to some recipes I enjoy:
For pancakes, biscuits, etc.: http://carlsfriends.net/OTbrochure.html
For No-Knead sourdough bread: http://www.sourdo.com/recipes/no-knead-sourdough/
For Sourdough bread with fermented jalapenos: http://www.culturedfoodlife.com/jalepeno-sourdough-bread/
What's that? You don't have any fermented jalapenos? (Gasp!) I highly encourage you to join the friendly facebook group, Fermenter's Kitchen and learn how to ferment them! You can learn a lot more about sourdough baking and well as other ferments there. There are sourdough recipes and tips in the files. It is full of friendly, helpful people. If you're not a fan of facebook groups, Fermenter's Kitchen also has a facebook page and a website. There are several other sites lists on the resources page for you to check out as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment