Cringy title enough to draw you in?? I thought it was cute and clever, but with a touch of oh that's too much. Either way, I'm super late to the sourdough game, and truly the opposite of a hipster in every way. Let's go on this sourdough journey together, shall we?
Sourdough Knowledge
To be honest, my sourdough knowledge is limited. I have a few books about sourdough but each time I have tried to read them, they have been so daunting and overwhelming. The different types of wild flours that create different flavor profiles; the amount of "necessary" equipment; the time commitment and precision; overall, it is entirely intimidating to a rookie. While I love baking, a lot of times I can simply decide I want to bake a cake or some cookies and a few hours later I am snacking away on delicious empty calories. The patience necessary for sourdough is not a virtue that I possess.
Here is what I do know about sourdough though. San Francisco, California is a sourdough destination for tourists. Boudin Bakery Cafe on the Pier is always full with a line out the door of people watching sourdough being made while waiting to purchase their bread, treats, or sandwiches. There are always shaped sourdough loaves that look like bears or turtles. They do sourdough well, and they appease the customers with cute and delicious baked bundles of gluten.
Everyone (obviously a hyperbole) got really into making sourdough during the pandemic. Which makes sense because people had the time to commit to the all day process of creating sourdough. At the time, I was not interested at all in making sourdough. The desire to spend all day shaping, stretching, shaping, stretching, shaping, stretching, and then proofing just to stretch and shape all over again did not sound worth the product for me. However, now I do understand a little more about the versatility of a sourdough starter.
If properly maintained, a starter can be a treasured, long-term staple in a kitchen. With the opportunity to split off discard and create a new starter to share with others, this is a gift that keeps on producing. So many families have starters that are passed on for generations and continuously maintained. There is a sourdough library in Belgium, The Puratos Library, with a massive collection of refrigerated sourdough starters. On their website, you can take virtual tour of their location. People take their sourdough very seriously!
My Sourdough Experience
One of the biggest deterring factors for me with sourdough was creating a starter. Matt and I discussed making sourdough at home several times, but the process of creating a starter and then waiting to bake the bread just turned my motivation way down. However, a lovely and kind friend of ours gave us some of her starter, which I believe she got from her sister, a set of instructions, and sent me plenty of sourdough inspiration videos on instagram. Big shout out to Ginia for doing the starting work for me, in this group project you definitely carried the team.
For the first two weeks though, all I could find the energy to do was discard and feed the starter. I didn't know what to start with, and I didn't necessarily have the time to spend all day tending to the dough. Until, inspiration struck, and I decided I wanted sourdough pizza. I have yet to create my own recipe with sourdough, as I am still just getting used to the process and the medium. I will share the recipes for each of the items I have created so far. I do suggest starting with something that you are really craving though, it makes the process far more enjoyable.
My experience with this pizza dough was extremely positive. Recipes for pizza crust can be so hit or miss; if you don't let it rise long enough the crust will be too much like a cracker; if you add too much flour, the dough is too shaggy and creates holes when you try to roll it out; it is normally a very stressful process. Often, homemade pizza is not even close to the cheesy, gooey, savory treat you aspire to have in pizza. However, following the recipe from The Pantry Mama was easy, enjoyable, and I might even say fool-proof. Her explanations and directions were very helpful for this first time sourdough baker.
Though it was a several hour process of proofing and forming the dough, I was still able to get a lot done during the day. My favorite thing about this recipe too was that I was able to eat the pizza that evening. Most of the time, pizza dough recipes call for 24-48 hours of resting before you can create your marinara and cheese topped masterpiece. I do not plan meals out that far in advance and when I am craving something I want it that day.
I actually put this dough together a few days before our wreath crafting day at the house so I froze three portions of dough to make flatbreads while everyone was over. I highly recommend this recipe for either pizza or flatbreads!
Plus I find it so satisfying to separate the dough into equal portions and attempt to get it right before the scale tells me how far off I am.Although Ginia gave me a recipe to follow for the bread, I got overwhelmed looking at what should have been very simple. I will attempt that recipe next time! I followed this recipe from Artful Homemaking, which turned out to be a great starting point. There are many things that sourdough books and bakers deem necessary, however I just haven't had the budget to splurge on yet. I do not have a bread whisk, but a fork and my clean hands worked just fine. I do not have a banneton basket, but a ceramic bowl worked decently well. I do not have a bread lame, and I intended to use a new razor blade because Matt has an endless supply for different projects, but he happened to be fresh out so I used a slightly dull steak knife, and it did the job. Was my loaf perfect? Not really, but it smelled amazing, it tasted even better, and it didn't even last the night.
I am not even close to a bread baker, a professional baker, or even a sourdough enthusiast, but I do have high expectations for anything I create. This was a learning process. The dough was extremely sticky and I probably lost a good amount on my hands while trying to "knead" it together. I say "knead" because that was not really an option as the dough stuck to the parchment, wax paper, and silicone mat that I placed down and instead I just kept folding the dough over itself and rolling it between my hands. I learned the wet hands trick, later, while performing the stretch and folds (easily my favorite part) which would have been very helpful in the initial kneading process. Though I was happy with how the bread turned out, I am curious if I were to get the "necessary" tools if the bread would be that much better. I will try a few more times with what I have to see if each loaf improves just with experience.
This attempt is a true representation of impulse baking. I had a decent amount of discard to use up and a good amount of motivation but limited ingredients and limited time. I had been thinking about making these for a few days and while waiting for guests to arrive, I just decided to go for it. Though not my best decision, they were fairly well done. I had the wrong type of cheese, no flaky salt, and a desire to add in dried parsley for some reason. The recipe calls for fresh shredded sharp cheddar, I had pre-shredded colby jack. I did not add enough cheese, blasphemy when creating homemade knock-off Cheez-Its. I seriously need to invest in flaky finishing salt because so many recipes call for it. Another issue I had was rolling the dough out the the correct thinness. I was probably a quarter inch too thick which led to less than crispy edges. I do want to try these again, and I am tempted to order a Goldfish cracker cookie cutter to make my own favorite snack.
I wish I had a better picture, but I am not lying when I say these were too good to waste time taking pictures. I was so excited to bake something sweet with the sourdough discard. I kept seeing recipes for sweet discard recipes but Matt was so skeptical. I waited for him to go on a work trip and took advantage of the opportunity to try out an exciting recipe. Though I definitely let Kristin at Dirt & Dough down by only letting the cookie dough rest for an hour and a half in the fridge, these were still the best chocolate cookies I have ever had the pleasure of eating. They were somehow all at once crispy, gooey, and fluffy. If there is one recipe that inspired me to continue using the discard, or even to think about creating my own recipes, it would be this one. I still have half of the dough saved in the freezer for a day when I crave them and really want more cookies.
Please, test these cookies for yourself. I could not recommend them more. Plus when Matt returned home he was no longer a skeptic and we ran out of cookies quickly.
Over the last few years, focaccia has become a staple in our lives. We cook and go out for a lot of Italian food, and almost always feature bread. Focaccia is easily our favorite, with a light texture, and an abundance of flavor, it is the perfect accompaniment to any pasta dish. Obviously, restaurants do this very well (as they should) and we enjoy their bubbly bread immensely. However, it has been a celebration of our abilities to create focaccia for at home date nights. Our yeasted dough in the past has gone over very well, but this had the most air dispersed throughout the dough while maintaining the crisp on the outside.
I was worried as the flour at the bottom of the mixer didn't combine in well but with a little hand mixing, all was good. I probably could have started it earlier in the day to allow for more bubbling, but it still turned out amazingly well. Matt has been snacking on it since we woke up at 7 AM and I quickly learned that garlic focaccia breath is not appealing when only one person has it. I am glad he felt it still made a delicious breakfast.
Sourdough Take Aways
One thing that has never been in question is my love of bread. However, I am developing a deeper appreciation for bread as I make it myself. Sourdough or simple white sandwich bread; dough is complex, fun, and easy to mess up. I think that the effort level makes the flavor stand out a bit more.
Even though sourdough can be intimidating, it truly isn't that difficult to approach. Sure, having fancy tools makes things easier, but there's almost more pride in completing a successful bread without all of the "necessary" tools. That being said, I have two items that I love using for my proofing process:
A spare piece of quilting fabric with a string or rubber band
I started out using a piece of shrink wrap but found that when the starter is being fed and growing I want it to breathe a bit more and still be protected. (This exact starter popped the fabric and rubber band off the other day because it rose up too much. )
My other "necessary item" (for myself) is my proofing oven. This is very bougie and very Great British Baking Show of me, but I got it as a gift a few years ago and I love it. Especially when baking at my parent's house because my mom keeps the house freezing and that is not at all conducive to dough rising. I have this Brod & Taylor Folding Proofing Box and I use it as often as I can. Though I know it isn't an option for everyone, having a temperature controlled space for your baked goods is so beneficial.
It may have taken me a while to catch up to the sourdough trend, but I am so happy that I finally joined the bandwagon. However, I think I will be experimenting far more with the sweeter baked goods than just straight sourdough loaves.
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