• Sourdoughs and SCOBYs,  The Perfect Loaf

    Farm to Loaf: A Road Trip Through a Short Commodity Chain

    By Eric Pallant

    I admit that I am envious of bakers who make their loaves using fresh, locally raised grains. It sounds like the ideal—for flavor, for community, for the environment. But I am also a little skeptical. Is local flour really any better than flour made with grain from far away? What are my options if I want heirloom wheat or ancient grains to bake with and they aren’t grown anywhere near me? What if I want to buy organic grains but my local farmers say that organic certification is not worth the cost? Should I just trust their practices because I like them? Is it even worth the extra cost to pay for local or organic?

    Read more at The Perfect Loaf.

  • Sourdoughs and SCOBYs

    My Sourdough Starters are on Five Continents

    Every sourdough baker recalls who gave them their starter, or how they made their own. I have made it a practice to share My Three Starters (for those of you of a certain age, I apologize for putting the insipid jingle for My Three Sons in your head), though I sell them now, mostly so I am not inundated by too many requests.

    Now that one of my longest-running sourdough friends moved with her Cripple Creek starter from Germany to Australia, I can now say that sourdough starters I bake with are alive and leavening loafs on every continent except Antarctica.

    You’ll have to read Sourdough Culture: The History of Breadmaking from Ancient to Modern Bakers to learn whether sourdough cultures morph when they move to a new home. While you are reading, you will learn whether old sourdough cultures, like wines, improve with age.

    The sourdough map is constantly being updated and you can see who is baking with which starter on the live view of the sourdough map.

  • Sourdoughs and SCOBYs

    Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies for Ice Cream Sandwiches

    Unless you pay very close attention, you won’t taste the sourdough in the cookie. The long fermentation time, however, does cut the overall sweetness of the cookie, allowing the ice cream to shine. You won’t feel like you are about to get diabetes from eating this concoction. Nor will you have any difficulty finishing a whole ice cream sandwich.

    Ingredients

    • 200-210 g All Purpose Flour 
    • 200 g Brown sugar
    • 80 g Melted butter (6 TBS)
    • 1 Egg
    • 60 g Sourdough Starter – I use a whole wheat starter
    • 4 g Salt (1 tsp)
    • 4 g Baking Soda (½ tsp)
    • 2/3 Cup Mini Dark Chocolate Chips or to your liking!

    ICE CREAM:

    • Vanilla Ice Cream

    TOPPING:

    • Mini Dark Chocolate Chips

    Instructions

    1. In a small bowl, whisk 1 egg in a medium bowl.
    2. Melt butter until it becomes liquid (warm but not hot). Now add brown sugar, sourdough starter, salt, and butter to the medium bowl (with the egg).
    3. Mix ingredients together until combined.
    4. Now add flour, chocolate chips, and baking soda. Using the back of your spoon and/or your hands combine all ingredients until you form a ball.
    5. Place your dough covered in a small Tupperware or wrap it in saran wrap. Be sure the dough is tightly sealed so it doesn’t become dry on the outside.
    6. Ferment your dough (at room temperature) on your counter for 24 hours..
    7. Before baking, chill the dough for at least 30 minutes or it will be sticky and difficult to manage.
    8. When you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350 f.
    9. Press 30 grams of cookie dough to fill a greased, smooth ring like an English muffin ring. A small mouth mason jar ring can work, but its ridges make the cookie difficult to extract.
    10. Without a ring the cookie will spread to more than double the diameter.
    11. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look soft.
    12. As soon as you can use a spatula to remove the cookies from the pan and ease them out of their rings. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
    13. Flip a cooled cookie over and place a scoop of ice cream on top. Use your scoop to gently spread the ice cream to the edges. Sandwich a cookie on top and gently press it all together.
    14. Optional: Roll sides into mini chocolate chips. Be quick during this process!
    15. Now place the ice cream sandwiches on a plate and place them in the freezer for 15 minutes (so it firms up a bit). And that’s it! Enjoy!
    16. If you’re not enjoying them right away, keep ice cream sandwiches on the plate in the freezer until it’s completely firm (this can be 2-3 hours or overnight) and then place them in a freezer bag or closed Tupperware

    NOTES: One recipe makes about 24 cookies or one dozen ice cream sandwiches. For other sourdough sweets and cookies see Jesha’s Sourdough.

  • Sourdoughs and SCOBYs

    Sourdough Discard

    Andrew Janjigian, a world-class baker, chef, recipe tester, and recipe writer recently published a terrific rant on the uselessness of sourdough discard. (Often sourdough bread recipes expect very exacting amounts of sourdough starter and when preparing a sourdough starter the night before a bake, it is not always possible or practical to hit a target in the bullseye. Hence, leftovers also known as sourdough discard.) Janjigian’s thoughts are that tiny amounts of sourdough added to a recipe, often without anytime to actively ferment, are mere tokenism. And if there is going to be enough sourdough starter to make a difference in a recipe, why not go all the way and make your baked-thingy a sourdough one.

    Nonetheless, Janjigian finds it no easier than any of the rest of us to discard excess starter. He is a real precisionist baker so he is much more likely than me to have some leftover. I’ve been working through a handful of recipes that he recently published for using sourdough discard. I’m not certain if you have to subscribe to his substack like I have in order to see the recipes and for that reason will not be publishing his recipes here. Go to his website yourself and look at his newsletters.

    Sourdough Granola

    I could not believe how good this was. The sourdough glop, mixed with olive oil, honey, and vanilla coats the oats and unsweetened coconut and then in the low-temperature oven slowly bakes into, well, a sweetbread coating. It was so addictive that I made a second batch using a rye starter and some local strawberries I had just dried.

    Sourdough Korean Style Pancakes

    We (my son Isaac is an excellent cook and he joined me for a day in the kitchen) used fresh corn, and chopped fresh scallions, diced garlic scapes, and finely chopped carrots and daikon. We made a thin batter with the sourdough. We fried in vegetable oil and served with two kinds of kimchi and a spicy soy-vinegar-gochuguaru dipping sauce.

    Fortunately, we made a double batch.

  • Sourdoughs and SCOBYs,  The Perfect Loaf

    Two Yellow Breads with Recipes

    Sourdough lemon poppyseed cake.

    Rebecca Firsker published this recipe for a sourdough discard cake in a recent posting to The Perfect Loaf. My version of the cake was denser and chewier than what I’m used to for a lemon poppyseed cake, but it was oh, so-lemony. It lasted a day-and-a-half.

    I was making a vegan red lentil almond dal the other night. Usually, when I make dal, I also prepare some sourdough naan to go with it, but, just to change things up, I revived this old recipe from Flatbreads & Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.

    Here is a quick summary of their recipe.

    2 cups atta flour (sifted whole wheat, but I just used freshly milled whole wheat flour)

    1 cup unbleached white flour

    1 tsp black pepoper

    1 tsp ground cumin

    1/2 tsp turmeric

    1 tsp salt

    1 Tablespoon veg oil or ghee

    1 1/2 cups plain yogurt, or more as necessary

    Oil for deep frying

    1. Mix flour, spices, salt in a bowl.
    2. Sprinkle in the oil and rub in with your fingers.
    3. Add yogurt a little at a time until kneadable; should be stiff but kneadable.
    4. Knead dough on lightly floured surface 8 – 10 minutes.
    5. Return dough to lightly oiled bowl, cover, let rest 30 min – to two hours.
    6. Divide dough into 16 balls. Flatten each ball with your palms, cover with plastic, do not stack.
    7. Roll pooris to 6 inches diameter, cover, do not stack.
    8. Heat oil to 375 degrees.
    9. Lay poori on oil. It sinks. When it rises, poke it with spoon until it puffs Turn over and cook another 10 – 15 seconds.

  • Sourdoughs and SCOBYs

    Uncle Marty Week – 2024

    Every year for as long as anyone can recall, Uncle Marty (left), Sue’s (right) brother, arrives from California. Beginning before Christmas and lasting through the New Year he prepares gourmet meals. I make breads to try to keep up.

    Homemade duck breast pastrami.

    Served on Menhir au Ble Noir, a rustic French sourdough bread made with buckwheat flour.

    One night Leah made Twisted Spinach Breads

    And another night, Marty made Burmese Coconut Curry stew with Striped Bass and Gun Gun noodles.

    As we always do we make homemade sourdough bagels to have with lox. This year: TWICE.

    I’ve mastered, and altered, Maurizio Leo’s Sourdough Scones with Khorason flour. A stick and a half of butter, how can I go wrong? Using freshly milled heirloom grains makes a world of difference, too.

    When I made them a second time, I was outshined by a delivery of fresh goodies driven in from Chicago bakeries and Arab food markets. Thank you Leah and Wisam.

    One evening Marty made a turkey dinner with all the fixings

    So I made a Jewish Deli Rye — I’ve finally mastered that one — to have with turkey sandwiches and a Cranberry Walnut Bread.

    Which we ate with Vegan Cauliflower Soup.

    Near the end of his stay, I made Sourdough Calzones with Spinach and Mushroom fillings.

    And Marty’s visit is always closed out with Danish Rugbrod, a dense rye loaded with, in this version, whole oat groats, wheat grains grown here in Crawford County, whole Einkhorn grown in the southern tier of New York State, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, and sunflower seeds.

    Until next year, Uncle Marty.

  • Sourdoughs and SCOBYs

    A Delicious Jewish Caraway Rye

    This recipe comes from Kristen Lopez a member of the Bread Bakers Guild of America. The bread was featured in the BBGA’s 2020 calendar accompanied by words of encouragement that we could survive the pandemic.

    Unlike many Jewish rye recipes this one has no yeast, but does its thing using only a sourdough starter.

    Ingredients

    727 g Bread flour

    73 g Dark Rye flour

    436 g Water

    18 g Salt

    109 – 250 g Rye starter (Her recipe calls for 109 g. I used 230 g)

    9 g. Caraway seeds

    In a spiral mixer, mix bread flour, rye flour, and water on 1st speed for 2 – 4 minutes.

    Autolyze for 10 – 15 minutes.

    Add Rye starter and salt. Mix on 1st speed for 1 – 2 minutes and then 2nd speed for 3 – 5 minutes.

    Add caraway seeds and mix on 1st speed until incorporated.

    Ferment in a covered container for about three hours and then refrigerate overnight.

    Next day, remove from fridge, shape and place in banneton for approximately two hours. The time until baking will depend on activity of your starter, temperature of your house, and amount of time out of the refrigerator both yesterday and today.

    Bake in a heated combo cooker or Dutch oven at 475 for 20 minutes covered. Remove cover and turn heat down to 400 and cook another 30 minutes or until internal temperature is 200 – 209.

    The internal crumb is moist, the crust crisp, but not too hard, and the proportion of caraway and rye flavor are perfect.

  • New Postings,  Sourdoughs and SCOBYs

    An Early Taste of Thanksgiving-Sourdough recipe included

    Recently, one of the breadheads I follow on Instagram, Parksandbread, posted a recipe for a bread made with butternut squash soup. I did not have soup, but I did have cooked squash, and modified her recipe to suit what was in my pantry.

    The squash generated a moist loaf with a thin, crisp crust. Pepitas were a super addition and the sage and rosemary, a touch strong for my taste, yelled out to be made into stuffing. The bread is an excellent sandwich bread, and even with just fresh cold butter on it, it is savory and satisfying. The crust is thin and crisp and the crumb holds its integrity even when very thinly sliced.

    The following is not so much a recipe as a starting formula. You will need to judge for yourself whether you need more or less flour or more or less liquid because not all cooked squashes are equal. When the dough is ready to bake the final time and temperature will be a function of the size and shape of your loaf.

    Formula

    330 g mature starter, I selected a whole wheat starter

    150 g water

    400 g cooked squash

    75 g whole wheat flour

    425 g bread flour

    100 g pepitas

    15 g salt

    2 tsp rosemary

    1 tsp sage

    I baked at 475 degrees in an oven with steam for 20 minutes, turned the temperature down to 375 and baked another 18 minutes.

  • Sourdoughs and SCOBYs

    Sourdough: Three variations

    One of the things I love most about sourdough, and breadmaking in general, is how many variations can come from such a small number of ingredients.

    This sourdough pizza crust was made with 100% spelt flour. Spelt is an ancient variety of wheat that has been cultivated for more than 5,000 years. It has a rich, nutty flavor.

    Following the recipe provided in Breadtopia the crust turned out super thin and crisp. The dough was extensible without being too elastic; it was easy to spread out, and yet the thin crust held a lot of toppings.

    I used apples picked from the ground beneath a friend’s overburdened tree, some sourdough, and Maurizio Leo’s recipe for a galette crust to make this seasonal offering.

    It did not last long.

    This sourdough pumpernickel with corn, rye, wheat, molasses, and raisins was so rich and delicious that even toasted and with all kinds of toppings from savory to sweet it lasted quite a while. The bread was so moist and dense that it could only be appreciated one slice at a time.