I've been stewing over this blog for over a year now. I've had a desire to share my various homemaking ventures, but it always seems like just another thing to do in my already chaotic life- And what is this blog supposed to be about? Originally, it was to be a place to promote bread making via Pantry Secrets, a method of bread making that inspired me enough to become certified as an instructor... But I haven't taught many classes, and I've started to abandon the quick and easy way and delve into the more complex realm of sourdough.
So I probably will post a thing or two about bread making, and a lot of things that don't have much to do with bread. Today, though, it is all about sourdough. Today I made an amazing batch of homemade whole wheat sourdough bread. Now, for those of you who are not accustomed to breadmaking, that may not sound like that big of a deal. And even to those who make homemade bread, that might not seem too impressive, but words cannot describe the sense of accomplishment I had at seeing my beautiful dough rising, and those gorgeous loaves baking in my oven.
It really isn't that hard, but if someone asked me for the recipe, I'm afraid they might feel like we did when we asked Nate's Grandma Randall for a recipe for "Squeaky Cheese". She said first you need some good acreage, a milk cow, someone willing to milk the cow morning and night, and so on. Well, to make a good loaf of sourdough bread, you first need a starter. A starter is just yeast, but it is a lot different from the yeast you can buy at the grocery store. It's more of a living breathing organism- not totally unlike a pet- that you have to nurture and feed. You can make a starter by mixing flour and water and letting it sit out for a while. Every day you pour some out and add a little more flour and water and eventually, you might have a good starter.
The development of my starter is probably a subject for another post altogether, so I'll save that, and just get on with what the process was for the bread I made today. Yesterday morning (or maybe it was Friday night), I got my starter out of the fridge and fed it. I fed it a few times so that by last night I had a good quart or more of fresh bubbly starter. I mixed it with a little more water and a little more than half of the flour my recipe called for. I mixed it together to make the sponge. Then I covered it and set it out on the counter. This morning I added oil, eggs, honey salt, and the rest of the flour and mixed/kneaded it in my Bosch for about 5 minutes. I oiled a big bowl and let it raise in the bowl while I was at church. When I got home from church it was almost ready to spill over the top of the bowl, so I punched it down and shaped it into loaves. Then I let it rise for a couple more hours until it had just about doubled in size before I baked it.
Most of my sourdough loaves have resembled paperweights. Last week I was totally on a roll and was making some great bread, when I blew it completely. I had put the dough in my oven with the light on to rise. I thought I'd just turn the oven on for a second so it would be a little warmer, but you guessed it, I got distracted and left the oven on. I didn't realize my mistake until the oven beeped to let me know it was up to temperature (350 degrees). I ran to the oven and frantically pulled out the melting plastic bowls and dumped the partially baked dough onto the counter. I had to throwthe bowls away, but amazingly, the dough that I salvaged rose just fine and baked up into some nice bread. Up until today, that was still my best whole wheat sourdough bread attempt.
