So, on Friday, September 2, I went boldly back into the world of sourdough by starting on, ermmm, starter.
My first attempt, a bit over a year ago, had not ended well, and I was more than a little apprehensive about how things would work out this time – especially after the starter overflowed the bowl on the first night – but I stuck with it on general principles, and, to be honest, because I didn’t need that particular bowl for anything else for the week anyway, so why not see what happens?
Hmmm.
Friday a week came, and I removed the folded paper towels loosely covering the bowl.
Yeeech.
It was not pretty, and I didn’t see any of the bubbles I was told to expect; but stuff did smell kinda sourdough-y, so I gave it a stir and LO! bubbles appeared (YAY!).
OK, we can do this! Let’s make us a loaf of sourdough bread!
This recipe is for using with a bread machine. Since it would seem that I am now going to be making sourdough at least once a week, I’ll start playing around with regular oven recipes to post – stay tuned!
INGREDIENTS
•1 cup sourdough starter
•1/2 cup water
•3 cups flour
•2 tbsp sugar
•1-1/2 tsp salt
•1 tsp yeast
Stir the cold sourdough starter, measure out one cup into a bowl, and allow to come to room temperature – the starter will expand as it warms up. DON’T FORGET to stir 3/4 cup of flour, 3/4 cup of water, and 1 tsp of sugar into what’s left of your starter and transfer it to a covered jar, cover it loosely (like, with a towel) for a day, then cover tightly and stash back in the fridge, or make another loaf of bread.
Add the starter, water, flour, sugar, salt, and yeast to the bread pan in the order called for by your machine.
Set the machine to the BASIC or WHITE cycle, set the crust to light or medium (I recommend light – this is a CRUSTY loaf), and start the machine. Do NOT use the delay option.
When the machine beeps, remove the bread from the pan and cool on a wire rack.
I made this one the first day I could use my starter, and missed the part of measuring it out cold and then letting it warm up and expand (oops!) – so my bread came out nice, but maybe not quite as nice as it should have. Still – GOOD bread, which would also make awesome French toast, or mebbe, brushed with olive oil and garlic, then lightly roasted, quite nice tossed in a salad.