Adventures in Sourdough

As mentioned in a previous post, I began a sourdough starter.  After about a week, we used some of the discard to make waffles.  (Every time you feed the starter, you discard about a cup of it before adding a new cup of flour and water.)  They were a hit.  Then I tried pancakes, also a hit.  There isn't really a sourdough bread taste to them, but the flavor was really good.  I also made a pan of cheese biscuits to go with tomato soup--yum! 

After two weeks of fermentation, the starter was ready for some bread!  What I didn't know about sourdough starter was that it is a replacement for packaged yeast.  The yeast in the starter serve the purpose for rising and the co-existing bacteria (mostly lactobacillus sanfranciscensis) are what produce the lactic acid that makes it sour.  So, when you make sourdough bread the flavor may or may not be sour, but the bread is made with your "wild" yeast. 

I have now made two loaves, both in my dutch oven.  Nothing but flour and water!  Look how pretty!

 

They both tasted good!  The first was a little gummy inside--not so much that it was unpleasant, but not what I really wanted.  The second, shown above, had a better texture, and lots of big holes.  Neither one had a really strong sour flavor.  The first loaf was a third whole wheat, the second was made using King Arthur unbleached, all-purpose flour.   Both of them had more wheat taste than a traditional SF sourdough.  And you can see that they look more like whole wheat bread in color.  I like the King Arthur flour.  It smells better than the Gold Medal all purpose unbleached.  But I think it adds its own flavor to the bread and masks the sour a little more than I expected.  Or maybe my starter needs to mature a little longer?  Who knows, but this is a delicious experiment!

Because of all the potential dough I discard (to the compost or to the worm bin), I was looking for other recipes to use it with.  I found a great one for fast pizza dough and we had pizza one night--yum!

So far I am not minding the daily feedings and the kitchen is relatively cool, so the starter is still living on top of the stove.  Eventually it may go to the refrigerator.  Our fridge is small, though, so more likely it will go in the milk cupboard when I need to move it to a cooler spot or keep it from growing so fast.