This will be a two parter.
Part one covers obtaining a sourdough starter, and care and feeding of said starter. Because I can’t bear to see a "What’s for Dinner" without recipes, I throw in some at the end: sourdough waffles, sourdough fruit cobbler, sourdough chocolate cake... which tastes a lot better than it sounds. I won’t be offended if you skip right to the recipes.
Part two will cover making sourdough bread and will have bread recipes.
Now on to the confession: I was not a natural baker. I didn't grow up with bread baking, and wasn't even that interested in eating bread until the artisan bread movement came along. I was afraid of baking yeast breads, but somehow eased along from flatbreads to a bread machine to free form yeast and then sourdough breads. (Yes, bread machines were my gateway gadget to a baking addiction.) Along the way I discovered there are lots of myths about bread baking and sourdough. So follow me over the jump for sourdough demystified...
So, why sourdough? It’s got waaay more flavor than commercial yeast, the texture of the bread is better, and sourdough bread keeps better than comparable commercial yeast bread.
Sourdough myths:
- Sourdough is fussy and complicated.
Not really. Remember folks, sourdough was what the pioneers took across the US – no refrigeration, little equipment, no ovens to use enroute. Sourdough was what the Alaska gold rush prospectors had in their cabins – no fancy equipment there!
- Sourdough bread tastes sour.
Only certain sourdough breads taste sour, most don’t. Sourdough gives a bread more complex and deeper flavor. Sourness varies with the particular starter and the fermentation times; you can control whether your bread will actually taste sour.
- Sourdough starters are hard to keep alive.
Nope. Although cultures are supposed to be fed weekly, I confess I rarely do unless I’m baking often. I’m in trouble if anyone calls the ASPCS (American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Sourdough) - my starters are frequently left unfed for 2-4 months, and after a long illness and death in the family, I ignored the cultures for almost a year. While this is not recommended procedure, I was still able to bring both starters back to good condition within a week or two.
Sourdough is just not that hard. Unlike the pure strains of commercial yeast, sourdough is a mix of yeast and beneficial bacteria, mostly the lactic acid producing kind. These lactobacilli make the sourdough culture more acidic, and the established culture very stable.
This means I can do things with sourdough that I’d be reluctant to do with commercial yeast. I can mix up some sourdough starter with flour and milk or cottage cheese as a loose "pre dough," and leave it on the counter overnight or longer. The milk won’t turn and the cheese won’t go bad in that time, because they’re somewhat protected by the lactobacilli and the acid environment those bacteria create.
As to stability, I have two active cultures, one I started from flour and water in my Pasadena home about 18 years ago, and one I ordered from Sourdough International shortly afterward. Both are still going strong. In honor of this diary, I began another one from scratch using the recipe below. I had activity by 12 hours, and a starter-like mass of bubbles by 2 1/2 days. It still smelled like flour, instead of the complex smell of my long-established starter, but it was well on its way.
So how does one obtain a starter?
Get some from a friend. Anyone with a starter is usually very willing to give some away instead of throwing out half at each feeding.
Buy a starter. Sourdoughs International sells a variety of starters from their website, San Francisco Gold Rush starter is available online and in some grocery stores, usually in the same section as yeast packets. King Arthur Flour sells a few starters, and there are probably other sources I’m not familiar with.
Make your own starter. It isn’t difficult, but it isn’t for the impatient. The process takes at least daily tending for a week, then weekly feedings for 3 or 4 weeks before your starter is stable enough to ignore for long periods.
The recipe below is for what sourdough aficionados mean by a starter or culture. Although there are "starters" that use commercial yeast, or milk and sugar, or are based on potatoes or various other foodstuffs, the heavy hitters of bread don't consider those in the same class. To get the best flavor and a stable starter, I’ll vote with the purists – flour and water and "wild" yeast, and perhaps a touch of salt or malt. When I made mine in 1991, I used the Nancy Silverton "Breads from the LaBrea Bakery" method. It worked well for me, but I wouldn’t do it the same way again; her method called for grapes in the starter and adding a pound of flour for feedings. That translates to lots of discarded starter and wasted flour.
I'll give a very easy starter recipe below, and offer some links for slightly different approaches.
Here is one good, simple, recipe for a starter, and a slightly more precise one with weights of ingredients is here. I summarize the simple one below, with a few changes of my own.
The simplified starter recipe
What container? I use a plastic container (Tupperware, rubbermaid, etc. type) with a snap-on lid, but you can use a glass, ceramic or steel container if you want. I prefer containers that I can see into without taking the lid off, but if you don't have one on hand, a clean margarine tub or yoghurt container will work just as well. You do want one large enough to double the starter and accommodate the changes in size when the starter bubbles up. The minimum size I'd recommend is a pint; something between a pint and a quart should be fine, or between 500 ml and 1000 ml.
Water - Chlorinated vs. Nonchorinated? I’ve seen lots of arguments about tap water vs. unchlorinated water. Out of habit I use bottled spring water when I have it and tap water when I don’t, and I can’t say I've noticed a difference. If your starter won’t start when you use tap water, try using bottled spring water (not distilled water!)
Flour The linked starter recipes call for whole wheat flour. However, I did well with white bread flour, and I don’t see why you couldn’t, too. Most grocery stores carry both all-purpose and bread flour; use unbleached bread flour and the freshest flour you can find by the dates on the bag.
Temperature The ideal temperature is 80 to 85 degrees F or 26 to 30 degrees C. However, sourdough should work at the range most of us are comfortable at, 65 to 85 degrees F or 18 to 30C. Be aware the process will slow down on the cooler end, and speed up on the warmer end. If your home is always cold, consider putting the container near something that generates a modest amount of heat, such as on top of the refrigerator.
After all that build up, the process itself is easy. Take 1/4 cup (1 ounce or 30 grams) of white bread flour and 1/4 cup (2 ounces or 60 grams) of water. Mix them in your clean container, and cover it loosely with plastic wrap or put a loose cover on - this isn't the time for the snap on lid.
Check your starter about 12 hours later; if you see any bubbles, it's on its way. If not, stir, wait, and check it again in 6 to 12 hours. If you don't see any bubbles at all within two days, throw it out and try again. It may be sluggish at first; you won't get the amount of bubbling a stable starter will give, but it should get increased activity within four or five days. If you don't get a "sponge" type appearance of bubbles within a week, throw it out as it won't be active enough to raise the dough.
If you've had to throw out an attempt, there are some things to vary on your second try:
If you were using tap water, try bottled spring water instead.
Check to make sure your flour isn't bleached. If it is, try unbleached flour.
Make sure the temperature isn't a problem - the water should be no hotter than luke-warm (80 to 85 degrees F, 26 to 30 degrees C) and the ambient temperature the same.
If none of the above were the problem, try using whole wheat flour instead of white flour.
Once you see a fair amount of bubbles, give the starter another 1/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water and stir well to aerate. Once again, check it in about 12 hours. If you see bubbles, discard half the starter and give it another feeding with the 1/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water. If the ambient temperature is low, you may only need to check and feed once a day. If the temperature is on the high end, start checking at 6 to 8 hours. Be alert to clues - if the starter moves fast you can miss seeing the bubbly stage, but there is usually residue on the side of the container to confirm that it bubbled up and subsided. There is a natural variability of starter times: Sourdough International sells a "fast" starter from Russia which works within two hours - almost as fast as commercial yeast. They sell other, slower starters which need four, eight or even 12 hours to be at their best.
The Good News - A Stable Starter
You will not have to pamper the starter after it is stable. In the first week it needs very close attention, and then at least weekly feedings for the first month or two.
As long as it continues to bubble up after feedings, after a week you can bake with it, although the flavor should continue to improve for a while. This is also the point at which you can feed the starter, put in the refrigerator, and ignore it for a week. After the first one to two months, you can leave it unfed longer, but if you do that you will not be able to take it out of the refrigerator and bake with it immediately. After a week or two at most, the starter will need a feeding before coming to bake-ready condition.
Don't be surprised that various starter recipes and maintenance schedules suggest differing ratios of flour to water. Many variants work, from a thin mix to a very stiff, almost dough-textured version. In general, a thinner starter will ferment faster, a stiff one slower. Although the experts differ, I usually feed mine with a 50-50 mix; equal weights of water and flour. This is a matter of laziness - its easier to convert a conventional bread recipe to sourdough when I know the weight of my sourdough is half flour and half water. On the other hand, if I know I won't be feeding it for several weeks, I'll use up to twice as much flour to slow the fermentation.
An established, healthy, recently fed starter looks like the one below. It's full of gas bubbles, looking like a sponge, and has no accumulated liquid
A neglected starter looks like this one. There are few if any bubbles, and there is a brownish tinge due to the dark liquid on top. As the yeast digest the available food, they turn it into alcohol, hence the liquid and its common name, "hooch." (After one feeding, this sad looking starter turned back into its old healthy, bubbly self.)
When Good Starters Turn Bad - Rescuing a Starter
You left the starter unfed for a long time in the refrigerator, and it turned grayish or has a wrinkly looking gray mold on top; your first impulse is to toss it. However, do not despair of your sourdough. DO NOT THROW IT OUT!
Instead, do the following:
Get a clean container with a cover.
Pour off and discard the watery nasty looking liquid.
Take a spoon or spatula and remove a good portion of the surface, discard it.
Scoop out some of the culture underneath the nasty part (the underneath won’t look good either, but better than the surface).
Put a small amount – some recommend as little as a tablespoonful - of the scooped out culture in the clean container.
Add 1 cup flour and 1 cup room temperature water and stir briefly.
Cover and leave on the counter for 8 to 12 hours, or if your kitchen temperature is cool, up to 24 hours.
By the next day, the culture should start to recover, but it will need at least a few more cycles to get into peak condition. Repeat the above steps, but this time you can use more starter – try 1/4 cup - instead of one tablespoon. The process of using a small amount of culture and a large amount of flour and water is called "sweetening the pot," and you can rescue amazingly evil-looking cultures by repeating this once or twice a day for three or four days.
Remember, sourdough is resilient; the only thing to worry about with sourdough is excessive heat. You can kill a culture stone dead by heating it, but if you don’t heat it and you don’t pour strange substances into the culture, neglect in the fridge won’t normally kill it.
When is the rescued culture ideal for baking? When it’s bubbly and smells "sourdoughy" instead of alcoholic.
The Recipes
The bread recipes are coming in tomorrow's diary, but for today we'll look at other ways to use the sourdough starter. One thing to remember when you're using sourdough starter: you have to plan ahead to have the right amount of starter available. If you usually keep a large amount going, no problem. If you're like me and refresh with only one or two ounces of water and flour at a time, start days in advance to double the starter daily.
Sourdough Waffles
Waffles are my standard contribution to potluck brunches. Mix up a batch of batter the night before, whisk in eggs and baking soda the morning of the brunch, bring a topping of some sort and a waffle maker. Let guests make their own waffles - voilà, easy but deliciously impressive. For the adventurous, you can customize the waffles; take them savory for dinner, sweet for dessert, etc. This recipe comes from Nancy Silverton's "Breads from the La Brea Bakery," and makes about eight 8-inch waffles.
1/2 cup (4 ounces) unsalted butter
1 cup (8 ounces) milk - lowfat or whole
1 cup (9 ounces) sourdough starter
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
oil to brush waffle iron (nonstick waffle irons may not need oil)
Place butter in a small saucepan and add the milk; warm it over low heat until the butter melts. (Alternately place both in a glass container and heat cautiously in the microwave until the butter is melted.) Set aside to let the mixture cool. When it is cool, combine milk and melted butter with the starter, salt, brown sugar, and flour. Whisk to combine well. Cover the batter with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 8 to 14 hours.
The morning of the brunch, whisk in the eggs and the baking soda. Heat the waffle iron, and brush with oil or follow the instructions with your waffle maker. Pour 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of batter onto the hot waffle iron and close the cover, cooking until the waffle is golden and crisp, 3 to 5 minutes for most waffle makers. Top with maple syrup, butter, jam, or fruit compote. Devour.
Emergency version, discovered when I ran out of batter. If you have recently refreshed starter in the refrigerator, you can mix up the batter all at once, skipping the several hours at room temperature. The flavor won't be as developed, but it still makes a good waffle.
Sourdough Chocolate Cake
This sounds strange, but tastes just fine and makes a very moist cake that keeps well. Because the sourdough starter affects the texture, this cake can be made with less fat than you might ordinarily need for a similar size cake. The recipe makes two 9" round layers. (I generally cut the recipe in half and make one round.) If the occasion demands a dressed-up cake and you don't want to frost or glaze, sift some confectioner's sugar on top.
1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup milk, lowfat or whole
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup oil
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup cocoa powder (I suggest one of the "dutched" cocoas, such as Droste or Merckens)
2 eggs
1/2 cup rum
handful of mini chocolate chips (the large ones tend to sink to the bottom of the pan)
Preheat oven to 350 F and grease two round 9-inch cake pans. In a large bowl, mix the starter, milk, and flour. Cover and leave the mixture at room temperature to ferment for 2 to 3 hours, or until bubbly. If timing is a problem, you can let the mix start to bubble up, then refrigerate it for a day to finish later. When "later" comes, cream the sugar, oil, salt, vanilla, baking soda, and cocoa together. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well to incorporate as much air as possible. Add the starter-milk mixture to the sugar-cocoa mix and combine. Try to avoid deflating the mixture, but make sure the two are well blended. Divide the batter between the two greased cake pans. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for five minutes, then flip to turn out the cake. Turn it right side up, and finish cooling on a wire rack (if you don't have a rack, improvise - a perforated broiler pan, one of the racks from inside the oven, etc.) Eat as is, or frost, glaze, or sprinkle with confectioner's sugar.
* One of these days I'm going to try this one with an orange or coffee flavored liqueur instead of rum. I've also made this with a mashed up banana added - very good.
Sourdough Plum Cobbler Makes one 8 by 11 inch cobbler
The fruit:
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
6 to 8 cups plums, pits removed and quartered (I peel mine also). Work over a bowl to catch any juice.
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, depending on how much you like ginger
shreds of orange peel
The topping:
1 cup flour (4 ounces)
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sourdough starter
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons sliced almonds (optional)
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (about 200 degrees C).
Mix 1/3 cup sugar with the cornstarch and ginger. Sprinkle over the plums and any associated juice, then mix to combine. Ladle the fruit into a 8 X 11-inch or similar baking dish.
For the batter: Mix either by hand or in a food processor.
Combine the flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, the baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter until the mixture looks like meal, or pulse in a food processor to achieve the same effect. Stir in the milk and sourdough starter. Pour the batter over the plums, or drop by spoonfuls. The batter does not have to fully cover the fruit; I like to have areas of plum showing through. Sprinkle the sliced almonds on top of the batter.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until the topping looks golden. Delicious warm, at room temperature, or straight from the refrigerator.
Note that baking this right away gives more of a crust to the cobbler. If you let the batter rise, you'll have a more biscuit-like topping.
Part 2 tomorrow - Sourdough Bread