SOURDOUGH STARTER, BREAD AND BATCH 2

My first attempt a couple of months ago at a sourdough starter was a complete failure. Last week I found Garden Girl who made it look soooo easy. So I decided to give it another go. I'm glad I did, because it turned out fabulously! You're going to love it!

Before you get to the bread making part of this whole deal, you first need to make the starter.

You'll need:
2 cups warm water

1 Tbsp sugar or honey

1 Tbsp yeast

2 cups flour

2 - 5 days of patience

Day 1:

Get yourself a big bowl. Dissolve the sugar then the yeast in the water. Gradually add the flour. .

It looked like lumpy pancake mix:

Cover the bowl with a piece of wax paper and set someplace warm. Let sit for 2-5 days, stirring twice a day

By night time Day 1:

Day 2: Really burbling along


Day 3: It separated a little and that's okay, just stir it back in.

CLASSIC SOURDOUGH BREAD

1 cup sourdough starter

1 1/2 cups warm water (bottled)

5 1/2 - 6 1/2 cups flour

1 Tbsp salt

1 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp baking soda

Day 4:

Blend starter thoroughly. Pour 1 cup of starter into a big glass bowl and set aside. You'll deal with it in a minute, but first replenish the starter with 1/2 cup of warm water and 1/2 cup of flour. Give it a good old stir and don't worry about a few lumps. I put my bowl inside a ziploc bag that wasn't zipped tight and put it in the fridge.

To the 1 cup of starter you set aside, add your warm bottled water and 3 cups of flour. Beat vigorously. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let it do it's thing for 2 - 24 hours. The longer the better.

18 hours later the dough (sponge) looked like this:

Blend the salt, sugar and soda into 2 cups of flour. Mix this into the sponge. This is where I abandoned the spoon and just used my hands to mix it right in the bowl. When the dough starts to hold together, turn out onto floured board and knead for 4 - 5 minutes. Add flour as needed to make a stiff dough (I only had to add 1/4 cup).


Put dough into greased bowl wrapped tightly with plastic wrap. I also put a hand towel over the bowl for extra warmth. Let rise for 2 - 4 hours.



After 3 hours I gave the dough a test poke:


It didn't spring back on me, so I knocked it down and shaped it into 2 long french bread style loaves. I Placed them on a cornmeal sprinkled (put lots on or they will stick) baking sheet, covered with a tea towel and let them rise another 2+ hours.

Preheat the oven to 450 and put a broiler pan (don't use a cookie sheet like I did - the sheet warped) on the bottom shelf to heat up.

Slash the loaves and brush with cold water.


When your oven is ready, pour 3 cups of water into that broiler pan and put the loaves in on the rack above the steam and bake for 25 minutes.

And voila! I always brush my bread with butter as soon as it comes out of the oven.

This is a really good bread!! The crust is soft and thin. The bread is moist and just yummy! I'm going to replace our usual homemade bread with this sourdough....it's that good!

BATCH #2

And then for the big test...did my starter survive?! It had separated but I just stirred it in and I am now in the process of making my second batch!