Sourdough Bread From a Homemade Starter.

My husband loves sourdough bread and I had never really eaten it so I decided to give it a try. Of course I couldn't make it the easy way and use yeast. I decided to grow a colony of bacteria on my counter instead. Here are the basic steps I took to make it. I'm assuming the result was good because I made the bread two days ago and its almost gone.

 To make a starter you need a large mason jar, 1 cup of flour, and 1 cup of water. Mix the flour and water together in the jar, loosely screw on the lid and sit it in a warm spot. Keep it between 70-80 degrees. Temperatures over 100 will kill it. Every 24 hours you must throw away half of your starter and add a fresh half cup of water and half cup of flour. It will be bubbly and have a slightly sour smell when its ready. Mine took 3 days but it could take longer.

 To make the bread: Pour your starter into a large bowl. Wash the jar because you will have leftover starter to put back into it. Add 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of warm water to the starter. Mix thoroughly. Sit it in a warm place to ferment, or as bakers call it "proofing". This is now called the "sponge".
 

 I proofed my sponge in the bathroom by the heater because it is the only warm place in the house where the dog and toddler can't get to it. It took an hour for mine to become frothy and smell sour like beer. It can take some starters 6-8 hours to proof. Just remember this is an all day process. The longer you let the sponge proof the more sour flavor your bread will have.

 Now to the recipe:
 2 cups of starter
3 cups flour
 2 tbs. olive oil or softened butter
 4 tsp. sugar
 2 tsp. salt

Mix the 2 cups of starter, sugar, salt, and oil(you can leave this out if you wish) together. Knead in the flour a half cup at a time. Yo may not need to use all of the flour. I only used 2 1/2 cups flour to get the right consistency. Let the dough rise loosely covered with a towel in a warm place. I put mine in the bathroom again. Let the dough double in bulk. Mine took 3 hours, but I don't think that was quite long enough.

Put the leftover starter back into the jar and give it a fresh feed of 1 cup water and 1 cup flour. Poke a hole into the lid and keep it in your fridge. Feed it 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water once a week. This will be your starter for next time.

After rising in the oven.

 

 

 

Punch the dough down and knead it a little more. My dough didn't really need to be punched down. I got impatient after 3 hours. Slit the dough down the middle if you want, cover it with a paper towel and let it rise again, until doubled in bulk. I turned my oven on for a few minutes and put the dough in there for about an hour.

Now bake the bread at 350 for 30-45 minutes. Do not preheat the oven. Let the loaf cool on a cooling rack for an hour before slicing.

My bread was very dense but still tasted good. Next time I will let the dough rise overnight. I am also going to try to make a sweet sourdough.

I got all my information from this great site Sourdough Baking. The Basics by S. John Ross.