Sourdough, the Bread Pet

By now, and all the great travel posts that David has recently blogged, you have probably surmised that we are back in England. Still stressful to travel but we made it safe and sound to our sweet little 400 square foot flat. It was also so wonderful to once again see our grandchildren our son Kenny, who is now back from deployment, and our lovely daughter in-law Kim.

So, Kenny and Kim have been experimenting with sourdough. This is a great skill to have for baking. It will allow baking without yeast and is better for the digestive system. I have been meaning to learn this myself but as of yet have not done so. The first day of our arrival, I am handed a jar of doughy goo, aka a sourdough starter. I was told to feed it and take care of it. In return, I was promised yummy baked goods. How sneaky of them. I didn't know it at the time, probably due to jetlag, but they had too much and felt bad just throwing some away. 

Sourdough Starter

Let's be straight. I know quite a few tricks with baking. I feel like I know my way around the kitchen but I really didn't know anything about sourdough other than it made bread more sour and some people had starters that went back generations. I also vaguely remember as a child, my mom was given a starter. I believe my mom also made some bread but mostly I remember it living in the back of the fridge only coming out for feeding. Kenny did explain that I could keep it in the fridge and I needed to feed it once a week. Really, that is all the training I got. Maybe he said more but I had been traveling for almost 24 hours and I don't remember much.

After some sleep, I started researching how to keep my new pet alive. I started with Pinterest. I figured I would just look for a recipe and follow the instructions. I found a honey wheat bread that strongly resembled one of  my favorite breads, except it had no  yeast in this recipe. 

Again, let me say, I make bread all the time. I understand that it can take time but a normal loaf of bread, with yeast, takes somewhere between 3 to 4 hours. Sourdough takes anywhere from 3 to 4 days. You don't wake up on morning and say, I think I want homemade bread today. Also, there are all these strange terms like, autolyse, feeding, discarding, bulk fermentation. Still, I was determined. Kenny and Kim had already done the hard part of getting a healthy sourdough starter.

Day 1. Take the starter out of the fridge and feed. This all sounds easy. I vaguely remember Kenny saying add 150 grams of flour and water and then let it double. What I didn't completely process was that when you feed a starter, you need to have equal amount of starter, flour and water. Any leftover starter should be used or discarded. I didn't do this so I got some rise in my starter but probably not enough. 

Day 2. Make the dough. This was an elaborate process of mixing, kneading, stretching and finally proofing for about 4 hours at room temperature. The dough is then placed in the fridge overnight for a long cold fermentation.

Day 3. Shape the dough, proof again and bake. Of course by now I am dreaming about this bread that I have been working on for two days. I get up early to get the dough shaped and proofing only to remember that although I own several loaf pans back in Washington, I do not actually own a loaf pan in England. Too late to back out, I decide to make this loaf a boule shape, or free range bread. After proofing for at least 3 hours I put it in the oven to bake.

Free-form sourdough ball and ingredients

I still consider myself a novice baker in my new kitchen and I don't feel completely at home with my new oven. There are so many choices on the knob for baking. I have the owners manual handy and have referred to it often but I still feel like I am guessing on which mode to bake on. Anyway, after baking for almost an hour, which was longer than the recipe said, I decided it was done baking.

Mode selector control of the oven

 Unfortunately, the bread was a bit of disaster. I was still under-cooked inside. Whether this was from the starter not being fully risen, no loaf pan, not enough rising time or a combination of all three. It had a good taste, that is the edges that were cooked but so many other problems. This was discouraging since it took so many days but not giving up I decided to try again.

Free-form Sourdough Loaf  #1

Attempt number 2 was much better. I ordered a loaf pan, tried to be very patient with the proof time and cooked it longer but something still just seemed not quite right. I decided to go back and do more research before attempt number 3. 

I took the time to read what it took to make a good starter and it was then that I realized that I had been feeding my starter incorrectly. I now understood that I had to measure out 150 grams of starter and then feed it equal amounts of water and flour. The extra was then discarded or used immediately, which is another topic. For some reason, I had this silly notion that people discarded starter because it was outgrowing its home but apparently, there is some real science behind the amount of starter and feeding.

Attempt number 3! Same recipe, I did have one hiccup at the very end. My dough was shaped, in the loaf pan and almost ready to bake when I was needed to help watch the grandkids. My son picked us up in the car, so I could carefully take the rising loaf to his house to bake. That was an interesting car ride to his house. I was trying so hard to protect this rising dough. I had spent 3 days getting it ready to bake and I was not going to lose it now. I held this loaf like a mother protects a child. Anyway, the bread made it, was baked and tasted delicious. 

What next? I have already "pinned" several recipes that I would like to try. Waffles, breadsticks, even donuts but first I have to figure out what to do with all discard! I can't just throw it out.

-Becky