my first attempt at sourdough
hey guys. welcome back!
i’m writing this one as more of a “cooking adventure” (i guess that’s what i’ll call it?)
i’ve found that one of the many good things to come out of this whole pandemic is the new opportunity given to us where we can connect with our neighbours. in that, one of my lovely lovely neighbours sent out a sweet little flyer a few weeks ago initiating a nice little whatsapp group that is continually growing! it’s pretty cute.
last week in the chat, she offered up some of her sourdough starter and i HOPPED ON THAT SHIT !!! i’ve made my own bread twice now and i loooooooove it… i love the whole process of it, and the pay-off is scrumptious!!!
if you want to make really easy, reallyyyyy yummy bread, i recommend Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread . it was recommended to me as a beginner bread baker, and it was SO good! mine wasn’t perfect though… if you do make it and i could offer any advice, be sure there is no flour chunks in the dough, and give it a nice slice and freeze after a few days… otherwise it will lose all of its flavour!
but! i’m not here to talk about that… i’m here for sourdough… YOU’RE here for sourdough. honestly, kinda nervous here cause i’ve heard it’s easy to fRIck up but we’ll hope for the best, okay?!
so! last night, i hopped, skipped & jumped over to my neighbour’s to pick up some of her starter. she also sent me some really helpful links to help me figure out what to do with this thing.
here they are:
how to make fresh sourdough starter
looking at these, i was confused, to be honest. i thought i already had “fresh starter”? why do i have to suddenly make more if she already gave me some??
well… i was wrong. i didn’t have fresh starter. i had starter that she had been maintaining in her fridge, and apparently, that wasn’t good enough for my loaf! no no no!
basically, i need to “wake up” the starter so that it becomes active again… i also need a lot more than just the 1/6 of a cup she gave me.
so, last night i began to “feed” my starter in order to make it fresh, and now i just need to continue to feed it until i have enough for what the recipe calls for.
in order to do this whole “feeding” thing, i have to add in equal parts water:starter, and then add in double the amount of flour. (so that makes the starter:water:flour ratio 1:1:2) - note that this is in cup measurements, not grams!!!
so, because i had 1/6 cup of starter, i added 1/6 cup of water and 1/3 cup of flour. then, i whisked that up nice and good to incorporate it, covered the jar with a cloth, and left it on my counter. it was about 6pm.
this morning, i got up around 10:30 and was happy to see that the starter already began bubbling up and smelling like that “good-yeasty-smell” that i love so dearly. this time, i measured about 1/3 cup of starter total, so i added in 1/3 cup water and 2/3 cup of flour & whisked… you get the idea. i’d like to note that something i’m making sure of is that i measure the starter before i feed it each time to get my measurements as accurate as possible.
…
okay, it’s still day two and it’s like 10:30pm. i just fed my starter again (it was about 2/3 cup now)!! exciting stuff!!!
i’ve been checking out “sourdough recipes for beginners” and i feel incredibly overwhelmed because all of these “simple” recipes are extremely complex… hahaha :/.
i also realized that i’m probably gonna need a scale… BUT because i don’t have one and this whole “sourdough journey” will be a p r o c e s s, i found an extremely simple recipe that uses cup measurements (on the same site that explained how to “freshen up” my starter)
so, you know what… i’m gonna go with it! it makes me nervous because it’s so simple and doesn’t go into extreme detail BUT i’m doing it anyway because apparently i’m not patient and neither is my starter :)
because the recipe calls for 2 1/3 cups of starter, i’m probably gonna have to keep feeding this thing for another day or so if my math is correct, so i’ll check back when i have enough. also, i realized that it would have been fun to take some progress pics of my growing starter… but i didn’t do that. here’s a pic anyway of how she was lookin this afternoon:
(what a weird looking jar of tomato sauce ;))
…
okay hi… where am i? day 3???
listen… i got up this morning at 8am to find my starter like this
oops hehe.
anyway… i measured it as i transferred it into a new bowl, and it was about 2 cups so i FIGURED that if i just left it until i got home from work in the evening, it would grow just enough so that i have the 2 1/3 cups i need for my recipe… right?
wrong. lol.
i got home and measured it again around 7:30pm, and it was 1 2/3 cups… okaaaaaay…
so, i fed it again, and my guess is that tomorrow morning it should be 3 1/3 cups. so i’ll be able to form the dough, let it rest while i’m at work, and then bake it when i get home!
and i’ll have an extra cup of starter which isn’t reallyyyyy a problem cause there are a ton of recipes for what to do with extra starter that i am keen to try!
…
haha okay hi guys… it’s the end of day four and honestly at this point it is all a BLUR…
so, listen… last night i decided to make the dough (around 12pm) because i had enough starter and i was working earlier in the day so i figured i didn’t want to rush in the morning… smart, right?
well! this morning, i woke up around 8am and when i checked up on my dough it was huge… like, HUGE.
BUT! i couldn’t bake it… because i had to go to work.
the recipe i was using said that i could knead the loaf again and put it through a second proofing period, so i decided to do just that.
so, i did that… and i think that was my first mistake. (also i don’t know why this recipe says to knead the dough… sourdough typically is not kneaded but i figured the recipe wouldn’t lead me astray).
THEN, i split the dough into two loaves, put them on a floured baking tray with a damp tea towel on top, and left them to proof in my oven with the oven light on (all tips i got from a youtube video i was watching while i was getting ready).
here’s what the lil dough babies looked like.
and alas… this is where it gets sad. i got home from work around 3pm to find my loaves had not risen… in fact, they had flattened out on the tray and stuck themselves to the tea towel. i did not get a picture. and you’re lucky… it was a sad sight.
i think the problem was that they had been left to rise for wayyyy too long… i perhaps should have left them in the fridge because, yes, despite my previous beliefs… there is such thing as too long of a proofing period at room temp. (even though the recipe i was using told me it could proof for up to 24 hours)
despite my dismay, i said “f*ck it!” (probably out loud, too), and i figured i’d try baking them anyway. even though i knew in my heart that i had failed, i still had some hope in me.
so, i reshaped the loaves, put one into a metal pot with a floured surface, and the other on a floured tray (so they wouldn’t stick together again), covered them with tea towels, and let them sit over my radiator for about 2.5 hours, in hopes that they may rise a bit.
and surprise! they did rise a bit! and perhaps i should have left them there a bit longer, but i decided to just go for it. i got impatient lol.
after preheating my dear dear oven to 400F, i popped them in for 30 mins, checked up on them, saw that they were hopeless, frowned, and continued baking them for probably about another 45 mins till they were golden. here’s the end result…
what you can’t see here is how incredibly FLAT the larger loaf is… trust me when i tell you that it is QUITE flat.
so… yeah… i failed. like, i really did.
but! i’m no waster! no no no! i did make some really yummy things with all the leftover starter i still had!
the first thing i made were these scallion pancakes (REALLY YUMMY OK). i just heated some olive oil up in a large pan over medium-high heat, plopped some starter on there, added some chopped scallions on top, flipped it after the first side got golden, and then once they were cooked, i served them up topped with some sea salt, fresh black pepper, and feta cheese to accompany & dip into some leftover homemade butternut squash soup.
the SECOND thing i made (because i still had a lot of starter), was this beautiful “baker’s banana bread”. i haven’t tried it yet, but it looks and smells a m a z i n g. (edit: i’ve tried it. it’s pretty good man.)
so now you may be wondering, “but skye! what did you do with those awful little bricks of cooked flour?!”. and to that, i reply, “okay, first… rude! only i can speak poorly of them… SECOND, i did the only thing i could do… and i’m turning them into crackers, okay!?”
so, yeah. i pretty much sliced up the one (not flat) loaf as thin as i could, and now the little guys are hanging out in my oven at 215F to dry out and hopefully become decent crackers (and there are a few croutons there, too).
as for the other loaf… i’m tired, okay?! i’m leaving it for now. it will most likely become croutons or bread crumbs or something like that… maybe i’ll get more creative and make some sort of bread pudding or eggy bake thing, i don’t know!
SO! what did we learn here, friends?? sourdough is hard! it is more complex than i expected and requires much more attention to detail than i gave it, as well as specific tools that i do not currently have and should invest into. but, hey! i’m happy that i tried ??
as for now, i will enjoy my banana bread and crackers and croutons, and probably stick to my no-knead bread recipe for a while.
and, yes, i did keep a bit of my starter. and i’ll be storing it in my fridge, feeding it weekly until i muster up enough courage and energy to have another go at it when i feel up to it again. so… stay tuned ???
