Do any of you bake with sourdough? A cookbook recommendation.

[Blue_In_AK]

Before Christmas, my brother, who has been an astonishingly good professional baker and is currently the camp manager at the Donlin Creek mine in Western Alaska, gave me some of his 100-year-old sourdough starter from Sitka, Alaska, and I've been having so much fun with it. It's gotten to be a competition between the two of us, actually, to see who can make the most beautiful bread. Anyway, my husband gave me a great sourdough cookbook for Christmas called "Sourdough: From Pastries to Gluten-Free Wholegrain Breads" by an Australian lady named Yoke Mardewi, and it is MARVELOUS, everything from basic bread to waffles to some really decadent-looking desserts and croissants that I haven't tried yet, with a whole chapter of gluten-free breads for the wheat-sensitive. She tells how to make wild sourdough without using yeast, so I'm currently making some out of rye for a slightly different taste than my white Sitka starter.

Here are my two latest attempts. These are Parisienne baguettes.


And these are called "My Everyday Sourdough," although they're far from ordinary. It's really amazing what you can do with just starter, flour, water and salt.


The next one I'm going to make is a basil-sundried tomato-parmesan loaf. Yum Yum.

[Auggie]

1. For about a year ...

I was making baguettes and a wonderful sourdough rye with recipes by Peter Reinhart. I cultivated my starter from scratch.

I'm about to start working with a new book by Ken Forkish, Flour Water Salt Yeast, and might begin all over. We can compare results.

Those are fine looking loaves you've got there.

[Blue_In_AK]

2. I'm so happy with this starter.

It's just the right amount of sour and makes awesome bread. I'm anxious to see how my rye starter does. It takes a few days for it to get ripe, I guess, but I'm starting to see little bubbles even now, though I just mixed it up this morning. I love chemistry.

[Auggie]

3. Michael Pollan wrote an excellent chapter on fermentation

in his book Cooked. It's a marvelous, fascinating process.

[Major Nikon]

5. That's a very good book

If you use Forkish's method for sourdough, you'll go through a lot of flour with the feedings. Once I got my culture going, I feed it with a mixture of whatever the cheapest a/p flour I can get my hands on, and a lesser amount of rye flour. When I want to take a break from sourdough, I just refrigerate the starter and revitalize it when I want to start again using the method he describes. It works very well so long as you don't neglect the starter for too long.

If you're not familiar with the methods he describes, the videos he has on youtube are an essential companion to the book. I really like his book and his methods make it very easy to create your own breads from whatever flours you want.

[Auggie]

6. Videos! Of course!

Thanks for posting that. Should make it easier to grasp.

[Major Nikon]

8. Some of the techniques require a bit of practice

The videos will help, but there's a bit of a feel to it that takes a little experience. After a few loaves you'll get the hang of it and it becomes quite easy. As you've probably already discovered all the recipes are based on 1000g of flour and there's only 4 ingredients. So it becomes quite easy to memorize the recipes you use most often and after a while you don't have to refer to the book anymore. For best results, pay particular attention to the final mixing temperature he specifies (77-78F). If you are too high or low just adjust your water temp with the next batch. This will keep your results very consistent and predictable with your only variance being your daily kitchen temperature.

If you use the materials he lists, it makes everything easier. I bought all the supplies the book specifies. I had to mail order the bratforms. If you use them, make sure you use a lot of flour or they will stick. You'll also need to match them to whatever size your cooking vessel is. Just measure the bottom of the dutch oven and buy that size bratform. For the 4qt cast iron dutch ovens, you'll need 8" bratforms. The 4qt dutch ovens work the best. I had to mail order one of those because I could only find 5qt ones locally. I have a 4qt one and for the other I use my Le Crueset which is larger. The loaf from the 4qt always turns out better so if you do have to buy one or two, make sure you get that size.

[enough]

4. Gorgeous. (nt)

[Mira]

7. Wonderful looking bread.

I bake all of mine, have for years. I keep experimenting with new recipes and ideas and ingredients.
I keep a starter of sour dough in my fridge at all time, and just about always dump in a cup full of it into what I'm baking at the moment.

Next this week: Green Olive and Gruyere Bread / I'm having a little party .

[grasswire]

9. now that bread sounds oh so good nt