I am doing another sourdough experiment today.
I don't actually much like what we consider 'traditional sourdough breads' ... English muffins, yes, but bread? I like bread to just be ... bread. You know, like the kind you get for sandwiches from the store. Boring, I know, but that's what I like.
Still, I do want to use sourdough - I went to toss out the last sourdough loaf the other day, expecting it to be a solid hockey puck of dry toughness and it was STILL SOFT! and no mould! whoa, it keeps!!! And there is just something cool about not needing yeast from the store.
So I took my starter out of the fridge last night and fed it and let it rise on the top of the stove. This morning I scooped a bunch of it into the breadmaker, then made bread my usual way, more or less, compensating for the amount of starter I used, but keeping the rest the same as what I normally do. Let it knead and rise, and it looked really good ... though the rise was slower than with yeast. (I don’t bake my bread in the machine – I just use it to knead and raise the dough, so essentially it is a big fancy warm mixer.)
The dough looked great, so I took it out, shaped it, put it in a pan, and put it in the oven to rise a second time. It definitely kept rising! Looked great. Just turned the oven on to see how it bakes. :)
I'm excited!
…
Oh, yes, that worked just fine!
The bread came out beautifully … the texture on the inside is just the way I like it, fluffy and airy but compact, the crust had just the right amount of crunch, and the taste was a tiny bit tangy but it didn’t yell “sourdough” at me. I think with the addition of a tablespoon or so of honey or sugar, it’ll be absolutely fantastic.
Yay for bread!
Oh, and to go with it, we had cream of potato soup. I sliced a few potatoes into the pot with my awesome v-slicer, then added a few hunks of dehydrated garlic and a green onion (couldn’t find a regular onion) and cooked that until the potatoes were soft. Drained the water, dumped the cooked veggies into the blender, added milk and zinged it until it was nice and creamy. Then I poured it back in the pot and seasoned with seasoning salt, regular salt, pepper, and a bit of dehydrated onion powder. Yum.
YUM....your meal sounds delicious....I LOVE cream of potato soup. Have you ever tried an immersion blender? I love mine, I puree the soup right in the cooking pot (after everything has simmered till nice and tender), then use my handy dandy immersion blender, adjust the seasonings and Voila' dinner. And no blender to wash :)
ReplyDeleteNow I am NEEDING to make some bread....would you please share your sourdough starter recipe?
I used to have an immersion blender - I usually use the food mill for soups, as I often have bits I want strained out ... but this one did fine in the big blender. And my blender will go through the dishwasher. :)
ReplyDeleteSourdough starter: flour, water, time, warmth. That's it. Really. I did use whole wheat and rye as well as white flour to start off (whole wheat and rye seem to be important at the start of the feeding cycle), just kept topping it up and dumping some out every day until it smelled nice and rose to double it's height in under a day, then I used it. Simple. :)