Sourdough

[koshergrl]

I went on a sourdough making kick last year and had a blast with it. Then I got sick, then I moved...but now I'm ready to venture forth again in my new digs...

My at home kids don't like sourdough bread...but they do like sourdough hotcakes. I can live with that. Sourdough lends itself to a variety of baking uses...pancakes, waffles (which I never make, since I don't have a waffle iron)...ENGLISH MUFFINS (which is what I want to make now).

Here's the starter:

Creating your own sourdough starter | Flourish - King Arthur Flour's blog

And here are the muffins...a couple of people who belong to a sourdough group I'm a part of (fb) have made these and taken pics, and they look fabulous:

Pantry Revamp: Sourdough English Muffins - Five Little Homesteaders

You split them after they're cooked, and you have homemade sourdough English muffins..can't beat that in my book. For all that there's a regular wave of people who have suddenly *discovered* sourdough, I have yet to see anyone selling these babies....and the sourdoughs I see for sale in the shops around here don't look anything near as good as my breads did, and I didn't think mine were that fantastic.

 

[chao$]

koshergrl thanks to you, I got really good at sourdough. I can't wait to try making the English muffins

 

[Gracie]

Sourdough used for french toast is AWESOME.

 

[koshergrl]

That's awesome. I haven't done sourdough in a while. I got frustrated because of the timing of it, it's near to impossible when you work....it was too much measuring and weighing and so freaking messy. And I'm the only one in my household that actually likes sourdough bread anyway. I'm glad you're having fun with it, be sure to take pics.

 

[koshergrl]

Sourdough used for french toast is AWESOME.

So is sourdough used for bird stuffing....

 

[chao$]

It took me almost 2 years but I finally figured out a recipe for whole wheat sourdough Italian hoagie rolls. Try buying those at a supermarket.

 

[chao$]

Two years ago when Koshergrl first got me interested in sourdough, I never imagined I'd be sitting here whining about flour. I can walk into any supermarket and find a wide array of specialty flours with some costing as much as $6 a pound. Well I tried most of them to see what characteristics each brought to the bread. Turns out that about 8% of rye flour by weight makes a good mix. Hodgson Mill, the only distributor of rye flour in this area decided to stop distributing here.

The internet makes it possible to get anything from anywhere in the world delivered to our door but I cry foul. Not being able to buy something as basic as rye flour at any general store is yet another sign that there's something wrong with our culture. It's the canary in a coal mine to us home bread bakers.

 

[koshergrl]

If rye flour doesn't move, it can go bad, so grocers who can't sell it fast enough aren't going to want to carry it. I bought just a little rye at a time from the local co op and used it to jump start my starter. It worked fab. You should make sourdough banana bread!!

 

[chao$]

That's my point about home bakers. Rye flour doesn't sell but all the expensive specialty flours and box bread mixes do sell. I love the taste of rye so I needed to vent. I do make sourdough banana bread but I call it pancakes.

 

[koshergrl]

Haha I bet they're yummy. I made sourdough blackberry muffins once...I was not impressed.

 

[chao$]

Did you notice that when you add rye to your starter it smells like apples?

 

[koshergrl]

I never made that connection before but you're right.

 

[Mr. H.]

In the early 70's I'd watch Cowboy Bob's Corral out of Indianapolis.

One of his puppet characters was Sourdough the Singing Biscuit.

That was some tripped-out shit.

 

[chao$]

I never thought there would be so much to learn about bread. I'm finally at the point where I know what I'm doing.

 

[chao$]

Mr. H must be bored. Shoo shoo.

 

[koshergrl]

I'm going to whip up some starter tonight. The kids I have at home don't like sourdough and it's labor intensive, but I just want to.

 

[chao$]

Thanks for reminding me. I haven't checked my starter in about 2 weeks but I know it's still alive since it's in the refrigerator.

 

[koshergrl]

Thanks for reminding me. I haven't checked my starter in about 2 weeks but I know it's still alive since it's in the refrigerator.

It will live forever...I froze mine once and it came back with a vengeance...

 

[koshergrl]

First feeding today...made sourdough pancakes with the offal and ate them with homemade huckleberry jam for supper...YUM. I know, not very sour but seriously turned out surprisingly delish. Snoop will get leftovers.

 

[chao$]

I read that a healthy starter will stay dormant in the fridge for 30 days without a feeding. My hooch separates and forms a liquid layer on top after about 2 weeks but I don't worry about it as long as the bread keeps coming out the way I like it. I spent some time on those bread and sourdough sites where people try to absorb way too much information. To me there's no right way that works for everyone.