Making Sourdough has been a passion of mine for the past five years; ever since I assisted a cooking class on how to make your own sourdough starter. (Refer to my previous blog on how to make a starter and why sourdough is so healthy for you I Love the Smell of Sourdough Bread). This starter is a white bread flour base starter and is good for bread and all sorts of lovely creations like sourdough muffins and pancakes. Fun to make and keep around.
I had started reading the cookbook the last hour of my shift at Chefs Retail Store when all the customers were probably home making their dinner. Wanting to pass the time profitably I read from the "Josey Baker Bread" book sitting on the shelf behind me. Hey, I worked in a culinary focused industry and reading a cookbook was a potential future conversation with someone about some aspect of cooking or baking that you could teach someone.
I found myself intrigued- but merely copying a recipe wasn't going to work and when I copied a page I found I was missing some steps by not owning the whole book. So after a few weeks of this I took the plunge and bought the book!
What a great cookbook to buy- I almost exclusively used his book all year. And I probably will continue to use it- there are so many recipes I'm dying to try, like his Adventure Bread. This bread is made entirely of seeds and healthy stuff with no flour (so it's Vegan & gluten free) and very good for you. Adventure Bread
So my most favorite bread is his Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Loaf and I usually add walnuts to mine.
To start the recipe you need to have developed some sourdough starter and even though I showed you how to make a white bread flour based starter, this one that Josey Baker makes is 100% whole wheat and is a totally different process. I find it's also easier when you're done to store the leftover sourdough starter in the refrigerator and simply refresh it following Josey's instructions. (I do save all "discarded" sourdough and store it in the fridge for later use- refreshing every week after I pour off a black liquid that forms on top. Just an alcoholic by-product, safe but it'll make the SD starter bitterer if left in.)
The starter in a small jelly jar
To make his starter either boil some water and let it cool or use bottled water (he doesn't specify this, but the minerals and chemicals used to process water can be harsh to SD and you get a better rise if you use water boiled or bought.).
Mix together:
1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour (the best you can find- use stone ground or freshly milled)
1/2 cup cool water
Cover loosely and let sit for 2 days out on your counter. I do stir it often because I know SD likes air.
After 2 days:
Ditch most of it (usually at the very beginning it's good to do that because it hasn't fully developed yet). Save a Tablespoon in the bottom of your jar and add:
1/2 cup cool water
1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour
Again stir, cover loosely and let sit for 2 days. (I also do my stir thing- keeps it happy!).
Repeat for 2 weeks
Your starter is ready to use after 2 weeks and there's lot of happy bubbles for baking bread and Josey Baker's instructions for keeping it healthy are to keep it in the fridge and every week or two take it out (pour off any blackish liquid) and take a tablespoons worth and add it to:
1/2 cup cool water
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
Mix up, cover loosely and let sit for a day, then refrigerate it.
When you want to bake bread- take it out a couple of days ahead and do the above process- discard (or use) most of it, save a Tbls. and add water and flour at above ratios. This is a thicker batter, but it keeps well and is easier to store in such a small quantity.
I encourage you to get a copy of Josey Baker Bread: Get Baking - Make Awesome Bread - Share the Loaves because even though I simplify his recipes and add my own tips, I can't compare to his fun banter and all his tips and recipes. Josey-Baker-Bread-Baking-Awesome
All of his recipes require tsps. of the SD starter for recipes- so find some fun recipes to use the leftovers on (I'm really into waste-not-want-not).
Please note: When you start to see bubbles, you can save the leftover starter in a separate jar and refrigerate it for later use for pancakes or muffins and other treats and if you don't use it in a few weeks- pour off blackish liquid and add a good dollop of WW flour and some water, stir, let it sit for 24 hrs and refridge again. You can always google for starter recipes and King Arthur has a wonderful chocolate cake recipe customers recommended to me- King Arthur Sourdough Chocolate Cake Recipe.
Sourdough Pumpkin Muffins (or anything you want to make them be muffins- blueberry or apple & walnut)
These are my favorite muffins and if I didn't bake bread I would make sourdough starter just for these. These are pumpkin (which I do in the Fall), but I love adding cut up peeled apple like Gala or Fuji and I also add raisins and walnuts. Because the whole wheat is soaked you are really getting an amazingly healthy muffin. The muffin recipe: Kitchenstewardship- sourdough recipes
High altitude adjustments and adjustments for a dryer climate can vary with me on this one- I usually cut back on the baking soda by 1/4 tsp and I find the soaker that you make at the beginning a bit too dry so I add a half a cup water, which inevitably leads me to add about a half a cup more WW flour to the batter at the end to thicken it up to thick pancake batter consistency. It always works.
Next blog I'll bake my favorite sourdough bread - Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough Bread with this starter (so get going making your own so you'll be ready to bake!).
Josey Baker's Blog- lots of awesome bread pictures- Josey Baker Bread
