Sourdough Bread

I bet you thought I was gonna forget, huh? Lol. Since I make all posts from my phone, I don’t have them saved & scheduled; that’s why they’re not at the same time every day (in case you ever wondered).

Anyway, so sourdough bread… I love the stuff and have tried many times to make it at home, never with very good results. It’s always edible just never sour, no matter how long I leave my homemade starter out to ferment. I was reading a blog a couple months ago (I don’t remember which one unfortunately) and someone commented about Oregon Trail Sourdough. They have sourdough starter that they give (yes, GIVE) you for just the cost of a self-addressed, stamped envelope. So I sent off for a starter. I activated it as soon as I got it, and then just let it sit for a good long time. The trick with sourdough is that it takes way more planning than regular bread. Regular bread goes from raw ingredients to completely done in less than 4 hours; sourdough requires prepping the night before – sometimes 2 nights depending on whether you’ve had your starter in the fridge. Because of that, it took me probably a month between getting the starter and getting around to using it.

Here’s what my first step looked like. This is the starter, some flour, and water, which had to sit overnight before continuing to finish the dough:

The other thing about sourdough is that you have to use glass or plastic, no metal. Well, I only have stainless steel mixing bowls, so it took me a while to figure out how I was going to make bread without buying a special bowl for the task. Then it dawned on me: the ceramic insert for my crock pot!

When you get to the dough stage, it looks just like any other white bread dough, so I don’t have a picture of that.

We’ve been dealing with plumbing issues in the kitchen (I haven’t had a sink since Tuesday…), and one of my loaf pans didn’t get washed before the sink fiasco, so I had to make half my dough into a loaf and the other half into rolls. Here’s the dough:

And the finished product:

The verdict? It’s a little bit more sour than regular homemade bread, but far less so than what’s at the store. I think I’ll leave my starter (it continues to grow, so unless I choose to get rid of it, I’ll never need another one) out of the fridge for a good week before I bake next time to see if I can a better flavor.

–Wendy