To those of you with lots of real homemaking or simplicity experience this may sound silly... but I've been so excited the past week watching my sourdough starter re-hydrate and get to doing exactly what the pamphlet from the website said it should! It bubbled up right on schedule, it formed the liquid on top just as anticipated. It even has that sourdough smell. So today, I made bread. Yes, it's true... I am a sourdough virgin no longer.
Last night before I (finally) went to bed, I decided on the Alaska Sourdough Bread from the
Carl Griffiths 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Pamphlet and per those instructions, took 1 cup of starter and in one of my biggest Tupperware bowls combined it with 3 cups of flour and 2 1/2 cups of water. This sat inside my oven with the seal on the bowl and the light on in the oven overnight to form the sponge that is the basis for bread.
To the remaining starter, I added 1 cup flour, 1 cup water and 1Tbl sugar and set it back in the fridge. And yes, I know I didn't perfectly follow the feeding instructions for starter but this morning it's doing just what it should so I'm gonna be happy and go with it.
Today when I was ready to dig into making up my bread dough, I added 4 Tbl canola oil, 1 Tbl salt, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 cup sugar and enough flour that it made a ball that pulled cleanly away from the bowl and off my fingers. The recipe calls for 5 more cups but I didn't need that much. It only needed a touch more than 3 cups to form a beautiful, smooth, elastic-y dough. Put just a touch of oil on top of the dough ball to help condition it and prevent it from drying out, snapped the seal back on the bowl and set it back in the oven (with the light still on to keep it just barely warm) to raise until doubled.
Next, I divided the dough into fourths and shaped into balls for those traditional round sourdough loaves. Then covered with a damp tea towel and set them in the oven to raise a bit. When they were getting close to size, I set them on top of the range and brought the oven temperature up to 375F. Then I cut the expansion slashes and set them inside to bake for almost an hour. In my research I read that moisture in the oven is what makes sourdough bread nice and crusty so I also put a cake pan with about 1 inch of water on the bottom shelf while they baked.
The result?
Oh yes! I AM a domestic godess!!
3 comments:
Yes, you are. Looks yummy!
That looks really good! Thanks for sharing at A Country Saturday!
Blessings,
Life On A Mini Farm
Dang! You are a domestic goddess! I didn't make anything edible from sourdough until my third try! I'm glad I didn't quit, though. Yum!
Post a Comment