Sourdough is awesome

[mrsbrown]

I prefer to eat sourdough bread. The sort that's firm and chewy. So when we got back from Festival I decided to keep my sourdough starter going and make bread rolls for lunch each day.

OMG! Sourdough breadmaking is so easy now I understand it!

Each evening I pour the starter into a bowl with 2 cups of flour, half a cup of water, a bit of salt and some quick oats (not keen on just white bread, but I haven't bought any rye yet). I knead it for about 2 minutes and, because the starter is already glutenised, the bread is then ready to form into rolls. I form rolls and put the tray into the oven to rise.

I then put a cup of flour and a cup of water into my starter jar and leave it on the bench until the next night.

In the morning I turn on the oven as I head to the shower and 25 minutes later the rolls are ready to go into the cloth sack I have for carrying hot roll to work. The rest are left on the table for the others to use for lunch. I'm only making 6 rolls.

If anyone would like some of my starter, I'm happy to share.

Comments

[sjkasabi]

I might almost be ready to cope with that level of extra Stuff To Do now. Or as soon as this stupid sinus infection is really gone, anyway. I could certainly do with a fresh wholemeal roll for lunch each day :)

[villana.livejournal.com]

Wow! That is easy.

So how does one create a starter? (curious but unlikely to do so in my solo abode)

[sacredchao]

I adore sourdough and would love to make it. (hell, I bought a book recently with that very aim) The kicker is that I don't want to eat anything like that amount of bread. I'd be lucky to bake once a week and I wonder whether a starter would put up with usage that infrequent. A thing to look at I guess.

[alexbayleaf]

I would love some starter! But I have the same question as sacredchao... how would it deal with being done once or twice a week, vs daily? I have heard you can keep the starter in the fridge for up to a couple of weeks. Is that right?

[mrsbrown]

This starter spent about 8 months in the fridge. About a week before Festival I pulled it our, tipped out the black liquid on the top, scraped off the worst of the dark brown ook and saved a dessertspoon or 2 of the light tan stuff on the bottom.

I mixed it with a cup of flour and a cup of water (refreshing the starter) and left it for a day. Each day I discarded half the starter and refreshed it.

By Festival it had started bubbling happily and made good bread. I've kept it going since then.

Yes, you can keep starter going by feeding it and putting it in the fridge. I'm not sure how to manage it if you want to cook twice a week. You might need to refresh it for 2 days before you want to use it.

Give it a go?

[villana.livejournal.com]

So weird, The River Cottage cooking show guy was teaching people to do this tonight on TV!!