The Sourdough Starter

Julia knows how much I love bread and how much I love to bake bread too. She brought me a sourdough starter that she showed me how to feed and care for. We have been feeding it everyday she has been here so far. And we have also been cooking with it too.

A good sourdough starter is key to making good sourdough bread. Make the starter about 2 weeks in advance before using it to cook with. Your starter is alive and needs to fed and maintained in order to be a good, healthy starter. A starter is very simple to make and is only water and flour, that when properly fed and maintained will turn into a natural yeast alive with healthy bacteria. Mix the flour and water together well then store it in a jar with a tight fitting lid. It will take anywhere from 5-12 days for the starter to start growing. You will know when your starter is ready when it starts to bubble furiously while in the jar after about an hour or so after feeding it. It should double in size after it is fed. It should smell slightly sour and sweet. It tends to work better if you have it a little more wet at the beginning, and then to feed it, once it starts growing, you will mix 1/2 cup of starter with 1/2 cup of water and 1 cup of flour. Mix everything together well and place it back in your jar, only now, you can’t use the lid, so just lightly cover with a little aluminum foil or plastic wrap. This will be the way you will continue to feed it, indefinitely. Do not refrigerate it until after it starts growing. Stir it often before it starts to grow, then once daily is fine. Once you refrigerate the starter, it makes it dormant until you take it out and let it get back to room temperature and start feeding it daily again. I have heard of starters lasting for over 200 years if they are properly fed and maintained.

Sometimes after refrigerating your starter, if it is in the fridge for too long, a yellowish liquid, called hootch, will form on top. And sometimes, a black sediment will also occur. Neither of these are anything to really worry about. Some people just mix them in to their starter, while others throw them away. Both are fine. You can leave the refrigerated starter in the fridge for up to 6 months without feeding it and it should still be fine, but it is best to feed it once a month if you are not using it right away.

No two two starters are alike and because of this, no two sourdough breads are alike either. How you take care of your starter will affect the flavor of your bread. If you feed your starter everyday, the flavor of your bread will be mild. If your starter has missed a couple of feedings and is on the “hungry side” it will have stronger, more sour taste. I love it both ways, but I do have a slight preference for the more sour taste in my sourdough bread.

Bruce and Julia arrived on Friday night. Saturday morning, we first used our starter to make some sourdough pancakes for breakfast. Julia and Larry were the pancake chefs.

We fed the starter again on Sunday morning. We took some of the starter to make some sourdough crackers. We made our dough first, for both our crackers and our bread. We made our crackers out of our scraps.

We used the same dough for both the crackers and the bread, however we cooked the crackers right away and let the bread rise slowly all day.

4 oz of sourdough starter

4 cups flour, divided – bread flour is suggested, though all purpose flour works fine too

1 1/4 cups water

1 tsp salt or kosher salt

For the crackers, preheat the oven to 400* F or 205* C.

Julia rolled the dough for the crackers on top of the parchment paper, and she rolled the dough very, very thin, then she cut it into both small squares and long strips. I brushed them with lemon olive oil and then sprinkled them with sea salt before we baked them to a light golden brown. They were so good. They we thin, light, crispy, slightly lemony and salty too. YUMMY! Or as Lauren said, “they were KICK ASS!” My oven is funky-do, and takes longer to bake things. I don’t know if it is the altitude or what. I am used to my oven, but Julia said she doesn’t like it. 🙂

For the bread, we lined a cast iron skillet with parchment paper, placed the dough in the center, then covered it with a deep, round mixing bowl and let it rise slowly all day, after kneading it for about 7-10 minutes and forming it into a ball. You can do the same thing with a cake pan too.

When it was ready to bake, Julia scored the top of the dough and wrapped both the dough and the skillet with aluminum foil to make a tight seal. This was to trap the steam inside to let the bread rise more slowly and more naturally, and also to create a nice, crispy crust.

We heated the oven to 375* F or 191*C then put the skillet in the oven. We baked the bread covered for about 30-40 minutes, then we raised the oven temperature to about 425* F or 218*C, and continued baking the bread for an additional 30-40 minutes uncovered, until it was golden brown. We let it set for a couple of minutes before slicing it up and savoring every bite. Mike and Lauren joined us for dinner and the bread got rave reviews from everyone. Some of us enjoyed it with butter while the rest of us enjoyed dipping it into a lemon, herb garlic dipping sauce. And Julia and I thought it was fabulous both ways. 🙂

Life is short. Make the most out of everyday and enjoy it with good friends and good food. ‘Til next time.