Sourdough Starter Maintenance

Two Methods for Feeding and Maintaining an Established Starter:

At room temperature...

Unless your kitchen has huge temperature swings that make you feel like you're experiencing all of the seasons on any given day, room temperature counters provide a nice cozy spot for sourdough bacteria to grow.

However, choosing this method also requires that your sourdough starter be fed everyday. (Don't worry, if for some reason you miss a feeding, just pick up where you left off. Miss more than one day? I would start over, but that's me.)

When you are on a daily feeding schedule you need to stir the starter well and discard all but about 1/2 cup (4 oz weighed). To the remaining 1/2 cup (4 oz) add 1/2 cup warm water (8 oz of 80 degree F water) and 1 cup (8 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour.

When preparing to bake with the starter, the day before bake day feed the starter twice - at least 6 hours between feedings.

Then on bake day, feed the starter once at least 6 hours prior to baking.

Feed the remaining starter to continue your sourdough starter on the desired maintenance schedule.

In the fridge...

Plan on feeding the starter at least once a week.

Prior to feeding, pull the starter out of the fridge at least two hours prior to ensure the starter has time to come to room temperature.

If you are only feeding the starter - and not planning on baking yet - discard all but 1/2 cup (4 oz) and add 1 cup (8 oz) water and 2 cups (16 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour. Mix until smooth and cover, allowing the mix to remain at room temperature at least two hours before returning it to the fridge.

Wanna bake some bread??

3 days before you want to bake, take the starter out of the fridge to reactivate. Allow the starter to come to room temperature and plan on:

* day 1 - feed once, 1/2 cup (4 oz) warm water & 1 cup (8 oz) AP flour
* day 2 - feed twice - at least 6 hours apart, 1/2 cup (4 oz) warm water & 1 cup (8 oz) AP flour both times
* day 3 - feed once - 6 hours prior to baking, 1/2 cup (4 oz) warm water & 1 cup (8 oz) AP flour

Create Your Own Sourdough Starter:




Baking Sourdough Bread:

Baking the Sourdough Bread

For the past week my sourdough starter has been in the maintenance phase. I elected to try the refrigerator method, mostly because it meant less feeding and less flour used.

Knowing me, I would get busy and forget to feed it and then I would have to start all over. Sure, you can skip a day...but beyond that...it's really not recommended.

So Thursday, I pulled the starter out of the fridge to reactivate the growth process.

Using this method, day 3 would now be the bread baking day.

Today - was baking day at my house.

Early this morning (around 7 a.m.) I fed the starter, by discarding half and mixing 1/2 cup 80 degree F water and 1 cup all-purpose flour to the remaining starter. According to my book, it should be ready in about 6 hours.

Time to get ready for church.

After breakfast, church, shopping, and lunch - it was time to start the baking process.

**Using a scale, measure out 16 oz of the ready starter to bake bread. Feed the remaining starter 1 cup 80 degree F water and 2 cups of all-purpose flour and let sit covered on the counter for 2 hours (if using the refrigerator maintenance method) before returning it to the fridge.



Ingredients:

5 cups (1 lb 5 oz) all-purpose bread flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 3/4 cup (14 oz) water
2 1/2 cups (16 oz) ripe starter
2 1/2 tsp salt

* Begin by mixing the ripe starter with the warm water. Hand mixing is recommended, but I use my stand mixer. I like the way it mixes better.

* Add the all-purpose and wheat flours a cup at a time until a well mixed soft ball is formed.

* Cover dough and let rest for 20 minutes.

* Next, add salt to dough ball and mix until dough is soft, well-formed and slightly sticky to the touch.

* Cover dough, and let rest for one hour.

* Uncover dough, flour lightly the dough ball in the bowl before turning it out onto a lightly floured surface for folding. Be careful not to add too much flour, as it will be incorporated into the dough ball.

* Time to fold the dough. Pat the dough ball into a square and then begin folding the square, bringing the top to the middle and then the bottom over the top. Turn the folded dough 90 degrees and repeat this process, gently pressing out the air pockets.

* As dough begins to tighten up, it is time to place the dough back into the bowl, seam side down to rest - covered - for another hour.

* Next, divide the dough. The original recipe I was working with called for the dough to be separated into two large balls. I separate my dough into 2 balls first, one for a regular size loaf pan...and then the 2nd ball into four smaller balls to form mini-loaves.

* In shaping the dough balls, bring the edges together so that all the corners meet in the middle. I use both hands to work the dough in a continuous motion until the dough begins to feel slightly tight. At that point, I put the shaped balls into my prepared (cooking spray) loaf stones to rest for another hour, covered.

* To bake the bread, the oven needs to be preheated to 450 degrees F. It is helpful to use a spray bottle to spritz the loaves with water while they are baking. This will improve the look and texture of the crust.

* Now to bake. If desired, score the top of the dough with a knife or razor before putting in the oven.

* I set the timer for 10 minutes, to spritz the crust with water and monitor the internal bread temperature. When the core temperature reaches 200 degrees F, it is finished baking. The baking process for the loaf size I bake ranges from 30-45 minutes.

* Once out of the oven, it is important to let the bread rest and cool. Because I use cooking stones, it is important to remove the bread from the stones to prevent the residual heat of the stones from further cooking the crust. The longer the bread sits in the stones, the harder it will become.

* Now we have fresh sourdough bread for our family to enjoy. The trick is of course...not eating it as fast as it is baked. Hot, freshly baked bread is incredibly delicious.

Especially with butter!!

Sourdough Garlic Croutons

The sourdough bread I baked last Saturday needed to be used up.

Instead of letting it go to waste, I decided to use it to make croutons.



After for looking online for crouton recipes, we finally decided to kind of use bits and pieces of each recipe to make our own.

We started by preheating the oven to 300 degrees F.

So we sliced the remaining loaf of bread into 1-inch slices.

Next, we gathered the ingredients to finish the croutons:

1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup butter (or margarine) melted
1/2 cup minced garlic
Italian seasoning mix*



Mmmmmmm, garlic!



In one small sauce pan we combined the olive oil and garlic and simmered for approximately 10 minutes.

Next we added the melted butter and mixed it until it was completely combined.

While I was mixing, Jon diced the slices of bread.

He did a really good job. Knowing my track record in the kitchen today I probably would have cut my fingers. Or something.




In a big mixing bowl, we tossed the bread cubes in the oil/butter/garlic mixture.

Then spread the drowned bread cubes were dumped onto the cooking stone. Once on the baking stone I sprinkled them with Italian seasoning mix. More or less according to your tastes. Ours were pretty strong.

After I cooked them for 5 minutes in the oven, I decided to switch them over to a wire rack over a metal baking sheet. That would allow the excess oil and butter to drain.

My advice - go straight to the wire rack over the metal baking sheet or baking stone.

I should have.



In the end, they cooked in the oven for 25 minutes at 300 degrees F.

Within 2 hours they were half gone.

I'm afraid to go see if there are any left now.

The boys are on fall break right now and no food is safe in our home.

At 10:30 this morning I caught the middle one making himself a cup of coffee.

At least now I know why I'm out of coffee...I'm really just glad it wasn't me that drank it all!!

Another Potato Soup Recipe for the Crock-Pot

At some point during the night last night, someone turned the heat off.

That wasn't very nice.

Then the weather man has to go and tell me that it's gonna be a cooler day.

All day.

There's really only one way to deal with that...a nice warm bowl of Potato Soup.

The only thing better than that bowl of Potato Soup is not having to rush around cooking it at the end of the day. It's in the crock NOW so when those hungry boys come home from school, we can shower them with parental attention.

Win! Win!!



The rule of thumb in our house is 1 potato per person. Not small potatoes, not super enormous potatoes, just regular size potatoes. If it is bigger than my fist it is too big.

Into the crock:

5 potatoes, cleaned - peeled - and diced
1 large white onion diced



2 large stalks of celery, chopped
3-4 TBS chicken bouillon
1 10 3/4 oz can cheddar cheese soup
6 soup cans hot water
1 packet dry onion soup mix
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp minced garlic (we tend to lean on the theory more garlic = better)



YUMMMMM!

Mix well and cook on low 6-8 hours...or until the kids come home.




Then add the protein of choice about 1 hour before serving.

Today we will be adding:

1 cup shredded colby-jack cheese
1 1/2 cups diced turkey ham

Toppings? Sure!!

Green onions & bacon crumbles.

Maybe more cheese.

If you dare!

Fortunately we still have some sourdough bread to add to this feast.

Is it dinner time yet??