SOURDOUGH

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Weedygarden said:
I was always a serious kid and take people for their word. I read your post and thought, "Microwave Specialist?" Does he work on microwave communication? No! Got it! Sometimes it just takes me a minute.
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Yea, sometimes it takes me a bit longer to get the message but I blame it on how late at night it is or how early in the morning or the season, or what ever anybody might believe. Truth be told (hate doing that) just getting a bit up in the years and not as sharp as I used to be.
 
Sourdough cooks hotter and longer than most yeast breads. It also makes a difference whether you use a baking stone or not.
If not preheat the oven to 475F, after slicing the loaf put it in the oven for ten minutes then turn it down to 450 for 20 minutes and then down to 400 for twenty minutes more.
Use a couple of pyrex cups filled with water to keep the oven humidity high and spray the loaves and walls of the oven with water every 10 minutes for the last 20 minutes.
Turn the oven off and crack the door open for ten minutes then remove the loaves from the oven and let them cool in the baking pans until at room temperature. The bread continues to cook after it is removed from the oven that s why you leave it in the pan. You can use a pan for water if you like a softer crust or lower the temp a little. The loaf should sound like its hollow when thumped if it is ready.

Sourdough will teach you patience. It takes longer to rise, longer to knead, longer to rise the second time and longer to cook. Once you find what works best in your kitchen you will be rewarded with the best bread on earth.
 
It needs baked longer, you can turn down the temp towards the end of baking time and bake longer without it burning or being too brown....my old recipe bakes it at 350....

SOURDOUGH STARTER


1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 cups water

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup Instant Potato Flakes

Stir all in a quart jar, cover and let ferment out of the refrigerator at least 48 hours. Refrigerate. Night before baking, take it out of the refrigerator. Take 1 cup of above starter and put into a clean jar, add the following to it:

1 cup flour

1 cup water

1/4 cup Instant Potato Flakes

This is feeding the starter and will be for your next batch. I leave it out all day and refrigerate it that evening.

Put the remainder of your original starter into a large bowl and add:

3 cups water

1 cup oil (I use Canola)

3/4 cup sugar (I use only 1/2 as I don't like my bread sweet)

1 package dry yeast, dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water (I let it foam up before I put it in the batter, make sure it is good.)

4 teaspoons salt

9 cups flour (You may need a little more, make a stiff dough)

Pour onto a floured board and knead well. Put into a greased bowl and cover. Let rise until double in bulk. Knead lightly and make into 4 loaves. Put into greased loaf pans, cover with a dish towel, and let rise until double. (I put mine in the oven and close the door, the pilot light keeps it just right to rise high)

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Cool on rack, brush the top with butter, and remove from the pans.

To give someone a starter, feed, let out for 8 hours. Give them 1 cup, use 1 cup starter and keep 1 cup in the refrigerator. Then half the recipe and make 2 loaves of bread.

This also makes great Cinnamon Rolls. You cannot fail with this recipe, as each time you use the fresh packet of yeast. It is a very good recipe. Happy Baking.

For fluffy pancakes, add 1/4 cup of starter to your basic pancake mix. They rise so pretty and are so good.
 
We only use King Arthur Flour we get thru mail, and in my catalog this week they have a recipe for sourdough that is suppose to be easy. I don't make sourdough bread so can't say how good it is.
I did read the yeast you use is very important too. One comes from Canada people like I think it is Fleashmans? spl'.
 
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Also flour is not what it use to be either. Don't know how they messed it up but they did.
My baked goods especially biscuits left a kind of bitter after taste for past couple decades. I changed from all our favorite brands to King Arthur , fantastic taste and some stores even sell it, I just never could see paying that much for a 2 lb.s bag, so I buy online at their store now in 5lb.bags. I order 5 bags at a time and it last us all year or longer. We make pancakes now and then and cakes,etc,. We buy 2 bags of all purpose and 3 bags self rising. I do add like I always have a little baking powder to my self rising flour biscuits and pancakes. Hubby will put in a little salt too which I don't.
 
My starter has no yeast in it, just water and flour. I used a stonewate bread pan and a stoneware pizza stone for the other. It baked the best of the two. My recipe said to bake it at 350 degrees and put it in a cold oven to start. It said to bake 30 to 40 min. I baked it 30 mins. and it looked real nice at that time (comparing it to regular baked bread) so took it out. It said to take it out of the pans in 10 min. and let it finish cooling on a rack.
 
SheepDog said:
Sourdough cooks hotter and longer than most yeast breads. It also makes a difference whether you use a baking stone or not.
If not preheat the oven to 475F, after slicing the loaf put it in the oven for ten minutes then turn it down to 450 for 20 minutes and then down to 400 for twenty minutes more.
Use a couple of pyrex cups filled with water to keep the oven humidity high and spray the loaves and walls of the oven with water every 10 minutes for the last 20 minutes.
Turn the oven off and crack the door open for ten minutes then remove the loaves from the oven and let them cool in the baking pans until at room temperature. The bread continues to cook after it is removed from the oven that s why you leave it in the pan. You can use a pan for water if you like a softer crust or lower the temp a little. The loaf should sound like its hollow when thumped if it is ready.

Sourdough will teach you patience. It takes longer to rise, longer to knead, longer to rise the second time and longer to cook. Once you find what works best in your kitchen you will be rewarded with the best bread on earth.
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That's always been my experience as well.
 
True sourdough recipes don't add yeast. By its very nature sourdough gets its yeast from the environment. water and flour in equal amounts will ferment naturally if given the chance. I keep two starters going at the same time. At least one is proofed and ready to cook with at any given time. I don't add yeast to my bread. I do add a teaspoon of baking powder just before I cook hotcakes so they are fluffy for my wife but I grew up eating the less fluffy sourdough hotcakes with fruit compote over them. Here is the recipe for hotcakes:

Basic Sourdough Hotcakes (flapjacks, pancakes, griddle cakes)
The night before add 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of warm water for each two people.
Let it “proof” overnight.
Return one half cup of starter to storage and feed with ½ cup flour and ½ cup warm water. (add more flour and water if you are going to be using it again soon)

Ingredients for each two people:
1 large egg (room temperature or slightly warmer)
1 generous Tblsp sugar
1 Tblsp melted butter
¾ tsp salt
2 Tblsp milk (room temperature or warmer – up to 100F)
(you can use 1Tblsp dry milk and 2 Tblsp warm water)
Mix with 1 ½ to 2 cups of “proofed” starter.

Stir the mixture. It should be a thick batter, add flour to thicken it as needed.
Let the batter “proof” (about one hour) and bake on the griddle at 375F.

You can add your favorite fruit or berries (at room temperature) to the batter. Serve with fruit or berry compote or the syrup of your choice.
Just before cooking add ½ tsp baking powder for each cup of batter for fluffier pancakes.

You can make the batter ahead of time and store it in the fridge for up to two days.
You should wait to add the baking powder and fruit until you are going to make your hotcakes.
 
Thank you Sheep Dog!!!!! I will give this a try! One of my granddaughters (8 years old) LOVES pancakes so I better perfect this before she comes to visit again. LOL!!! This would probably work for waffles too???
 
For waffles you need to add some lard or shortening mixed with the dry ingredients - about a tablespoon per serving but the basic recipe does not change. If you like the "twang" of sourdough be sure to refrigerate your starter for at least 24 hours. If you don't then you can use it without refrigeration.
The cooler temps keep the yeast inactive and the other bacteria remain active making the acids that give sourdough its distinctive taste. The best sourdough hotcakes are refrigerated after mixed. I keep it in the fridge for at least 24 hours and my starters are both kept refrigerated too.
 
I love sourdough bread, and my experience has been to start with a hotter oven -- 450 -- and turn the heat down to 350 after 10 minutes. The hotter oven will stop the bread from rising too much which could lead to a fall. To use the hotter oven, it is important the bread has doubled in size.

My favourite sourdough starter is 1847 Oregon Trail. I used it for 5 years before I moved. Best and most stable starter I've ever tried. http://carlsfriends.net/source.html
Here's some fun history about the starter:
History
The history has been asked for. All I know is that it started west in 1847 from Missouri. I would guess with the family of Dr. John Savage as one of his daughters (my great grandmother) was the cook. It came on west and settled near Salem Or. Doc. Savage’s daughter met and married my great grand father on the trail and they had 10 children. It was passed on to me though my parents when they passed away. I am 76 years old so that was some time ago. I first learned to use the starter in a basque sheep camp when I was 10 years old as we were setting up a homestead on the Steens Mountains in southeastern Oregon. A campfire has no oven, so the bread was baked in a Dutch Oven in a hole in the ground in which we had built a fire, placed the oven, scraped in the coals from around the rim, and covered with dirt for several hours. I used it later making bread in a chuck wagon on several cattle drives - again in southeastern Oregon. Considering that the people at that time had no commercial starter for their bread, I do not know when it was first caught from the wild or where, but it has been exposed to many wild yeasts since and personally I like it. I hope you enjoy it.
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Elgar,
I got my first starter from Alaska. Its history went back to the gold rush and the 99'ers. Since then I have started my own and it has proven to be stable and robust. I have dried some each year to preserve it and I keep the dried chips in an envelope in the pantry. I can send the chips to family members and all they need to do is grind it up and mix it with equal amounts of warm water and flour and in about 24 hours they have sourdough starter. As far as I know I am the only one in the family that has used sourdough to any extent and I make bread, hotcakes, dinner rolls, breakfast rolls and cinnamon bread and desserts with it.
 
Elgar said:
I love sourdough bread, and my experience has been to start with a hotter oven -- 450 -- and turn the heat down to 350 after 10 minutes. The hotter oven will stop the bread from rising too much which could lead to a fall. To use the hotter oven, it is important the bread has doubled in size.

My favourite sourdough starter is 1847 Oregon Trail. I used it for 5 years before I moved. Best and most stable starter I've ever tried. http://carlsfriends.net/source.html
Here's some fun history about the starter:
Click to expand...

I've used this recipe too. Very good!
 
I will dig the recipes out and post them. I have several but the best one is soaked in milk overnight.
Right now I have a date at the range with my 357 and AR 15.
 
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