SOURDOUGH LOVE.
LET’S MAKE A STARTER!
I’ve had my sourdough starter going now for over a year - and truly it is so so easy to do, and there is this beautiful feeling of being able to create food with your own two hands, flour, and water. And not just any food, but BREAD. Warm, fresh, bread to slather with warm butter and salt. Like YES PLZ give me ALL THE CARBS.
To get my starter going, I used Melissa K. Norris’ book, Handmade. She has an amazing blog post on it here - def check it out or grab the book for an in-depth look at sourdough.
Okay, so grab some jars (I like these Weck ones, or these Ball ones) - you’ll also need cheesecloth or coffee filters put over top. You can use a rubberband or the ring of the jar top as well to hold it down. I also use a kitchen scale to measure - this makes it so much faster, more accurate, and less messy for me.
So the first two weeks, you’re establishing your starter.
The first five days or so, you’ll feed it twice a day, about 12 hours apart. I did mine around 8am and 8pm. If it’s not exact, if you forget one time, CHILL OUT, it’s fine.
Add to your jar 1/4 flour and 2 tbsp warm water. (Or, if you’re using the scale, and I would be, do 30g each.)
Mix it well with your spatula, cover with the cheesecloth or coffee filter, and put it in a warm-ish place. I put mine next to my salt lamp or espresso maker.
Then, 12 hours later, you’ll do it again!
The next day, take about half the starter out of your jar and discard it (this is called - surprise - discard) - then add the 30g flour and 30g warm water to the remaining starter, mix well, and set it aside until the nighttime feeding, where you’ll feed again with 30g flour, 30g warm water.
Keep doing this every day! On the 6th day, you can go to once a day feedings and do 1/2c. flour and 1/4c warm water (or 60g each) - see it gets easy!
You’ll start to see bubbles forming - YAY! IT’S ALIVE!!!!!!
Oh, and once it’s established, you can feed it and put it in the fridge for a week or two if you are going away or just don’t want to deal with it for a bit!
BAKING YOUR BREAD.
Okay, so depending on what method you use for your starter, you’re going to see a range of answers for “when can I use it to bake my first loaf of bread?” - some methods say a week, some say a month. I waited two weeks and had at it!
This is the recipe and schedule I’ve been adapting from a lot lately, it’s from Food52. I also have used Tess Aurora Weaver’s sourdough course and recipe too! I usually double the recipe and make two loaves - one to eat right away, and one to slice up for sandwiches.
Before I go to bed, I’ll feed my starter one more time if I know I am going to start bread in the morning.
Oh, and I use mainly organic white flour for my bread (I order staples like this from Thrive Market) and I mix in a little Einkorn flour too! Einkorn wheat is untouched by hybridization, so it’s kept its primitive genetic code that contains only 14 chromosomes—a huge difference from the 42 chromosomes contained in modern hybridized wheat. Einkorn is hugely abundant in many vitamins and minerals - much more than modern whole wheat, making it a must-have for your healthy kitchen.
I haven’t gone into full Einkorn sourdough baking, but I love using it as part of my bread recipe. I love love love using it for pancakes (Young Living makes a BOMBBBBB pancake mix), their dried pasta, cereal…all yum!!! I’m slowly working my way to full on baking with it!
8:00 am: Mix leaven
+ 20 grams starter
+ 50 grams flour
+ 50 grams warm water
Add the water to a bowl, then the starter. Mix with your hand a bit. Then add the flour, mix, cover, and let sit in a warm spot.
Between 2:00pm - 4:00pm: Mix dough
+ 60 grams leaven
+ 300 grams warm water
+ 310 grams white flour
+ 80 grams whole-wheat flour or einkorn flour
+ 10 grams sea salt
Add the water to a bowl with 60g leaven and stir. Add flour and salt, mix with hands to combine. Cover and let rest. Within the first two hours, give it a few stretch and folds.
8:00 pm: Shape the loaves
Put a little flour on the counter and dump your dough onto the counter. Use a bench scraper to work the dough gently into a round ball. Flip into a bread basket, cover with a towel, and put in fridge to proof overnight.
8:00 am: Bake!
Preheat your oven to 480 degrees with a dutch oven on the middle rack for 20 minutes.
Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit your dutch oven, and carefully flip the bread loaf from the bowl onto the parchment. Take a blade or sharp knife and made a cut down the center. Very carefully lower the loaf on the parchment into the pre-heated dutch oven. Put the lid on, and bake for 13 minutes. Then, carefully take the lid off and bake for another 13 minutes. You want the top to be golden brown, so adjust time as needed.
Cool on a rack. Just kidding, who can wait? Cut right into that bad boy, slather it with grassfed butter and flaky sea salt, and eat it all up!
Oh, and make sure to grab one of these knives - it makes cutting it so much easier!
EFF YOU ANNIE, GIMME SOMETHING EASY.
Okay, fine - here is the YUMMIEST 5 -ingredient beer bread from Half Baked Harvest - legit everything she makes is MAGIC. I love both her cookbooks, we use this one a ton!
In a bowl, mix 3 cups flour, 1 tbsp baking powder, a little salt, a bottle of your fave beer (I like to use a light beer, or a pumpkin beer in the fall YASSSS basic bitch for life), and 1/4 cup honey.
Pour into a greased 9x5 loaf pan, and then top with 6 tbsp sliced pats of butter.
Bake at 375 degrees for 44-55 minutes until a knife comes out clean!
