Wondering about the question mark in the title? Keep reading and you’ll see.
Many years ago I attempted growing and baking with a sourdough starter. This resulted in bread that we never wanted to eat again. I thought I was done with sourdough.
However, inspired by various blogs like Kitchen Stewardship, and Nourished Kitchen writing that sourdough makes the whole grains I love healthier, I searched for a tutorial on making my own starter. Maybe this time I could figure it out.
I decided to follow the Heavenly Homemakers sourdough guide. The picture above is at day two – it looks like her picture and things seems to be going fine. I continued on through day 7.
On day 7, I took 3 cups to make my first bread and then transferred the remaining starter to a jar to store in the refrigerator (you keep feeding it until it grows and needs to be moved to a larger bowl, which is why you see that above – and you have a lot of starter).
And let me tell you, it sure smells sour. Whew.
I proceeded with the bread recipe, mixing, kneading, and shaping 3 loaves for artisan bread. Since this is a natural yeast I’ve just cultivated (or tried to…), the recipe reminded me that it may take 3+ hours to rise. So I set one of the loaves in my warming cupboard (I use it for our sandwich bread – basically it’s a kitchen cupboard above a heat vent that gets warmer and raises bread better in our cold kitchen), but the other two won’t fit.
I pondered this and decided the mantel above the wood stove would be the warmest place.
I cooked the loaf from the cupboard for dinner that night. Sorry, no pictures – it wasn’t lovely. What it was, however, was dense, flat, and with a crust so hard I could barely get a knife through it. (Ah…visions of our lovely artisan bread was floating through my mind. Since it does taste more sour the longer it sits in the fridge…shouldn’t that count as sourdough?)
Anyway, I promptly forgot about the other two loaves sitting on the mantel. Oops.
I didn’t remember them until about 2:30 the next afternoon, a full 24 hours after I had set them on the mantle. Oh my gosh, I had never seen anything like these things. But being a person who can’t throw things away, I baked them up, thinking they might rise with the baking.
Um, no. I’m laughing my head off looking at these things! Have you ever seen anything so funny? Brian thought they looked like UFOs. I thought pig snouts.
And hard? They could easily be used as objects to practice discus throwing.
What is going on here? Well, the tops were hard when I took the towel off the dough, but I though I should slice the tops anyway, just in case the dough would puff out.
Yeah, no need to worry about that. And no, that’s not raw in the center- it just stayed looking that way even after being cooked!
We did try a piece (I know – are we gluttons for punishment?), and they were only a bit more sour than the loaf I cooked right away. But oh my gosh, the crust was so hard I feared for my teeth.
My son’s comment said, “well, I hope you’re not putting that on your blog.”
I guess he doesn’t get it. That’s what blogs are all about. Sharing the things that didn’t work as well as what did.
And laughing. I’ve been chuckling for a day over these things and I thought you might like to join me!
Update! I didn’t give up and discovered not only how to keep and grow sourdough starter, but also tips and why you shouldn’t try to make a bread like this with new starter (see, we really DO live and learn, right?). I also developed a recipe that makes a terrific sourdough artisan bread easily! I want to encourage you to keep trying if you’d like to bake with sourdough, too – here are links to articles and recipes you may want to check out if you do:
- How To Grow, Keep, & Use A Sourdough Starter
- Sourdough Tips for the Occasional User
- Amazing Sourdough Waffles (a great new-starter recipe)
- Sourdough Whole Wheat Crackers Recipe (another good new-starter recipe)
- Easy Sourdough Artisan Bread
- How To Make Homemade Sourdough Bagels
- Easy Homemade Whole Wheat Sourdough English Muffins
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Andrea says
I really needed this today. I’m on day 12 of getting a starter going. Attempted bread today because it passed the float test… but, nope, the starter is not ready. I needed to know that I’m not alone and not to give up!
Jami says
Yep! It happens to the best of us. 🙂
Have you tried some other recipes that don’t need such a strong starter? Like crackers, waffles, english muffins? It helps that sourdough fever keep going!
Angela says
I had a similar experience with my first attempt at harvesting wild yeast. It was such a waste of ingredients, I didn’t have the heart to try again. But you’ve made me want to keep reading and see if I can find success.
Jaime Lynn says
I have read this post about 20 times in the last 2 weeks and am still laughing. I love it so much. I don’t know why. Thank you so much for sharing this! HA HA!!!!
[email protected] An Oregon Cottage says
Wow, Minerva’s garden! Thank you for the detailed recipe- it does sound doable. I have been keeping my sourdough alive in the fridge with regular feedings and I’ve been using it for our favorite waffles and some crackers and such, but not much bread. 🙂
minerva's garden says
I’ve been making sourdough bread for a while, and here is a recipe I’ve used for several years that I no longer make in a bread machine but instead make by hand, but it came from the book Rustic European Breads From Your Bread Machine:
1.Heat oven to 170 degrees.
2. Mix together:
-2 1/4 tsp. yeast
-2 tsp brown sugar
Put these two in a medium Pyrex bowl, and add 1 cup water at 105 degrees, and mix.
3. Turn the oven off, put the yeast in the bowl inside the oven, and let it sit there for 13 minutes.
4. While you wait, get two big bowls out. One you will oil. The other you will measure in the bread ingredients and mix them:
–3 3/4 cups white unbleached flour
–3/4 tsp. salt
5. When the yeast is ready and puffed up(proofed), add it to the flour mixture, plus:
–1 cup sourdough starter
and mix it up into dough. Preheat your oven once again to 170 degrees. Once the dough has formed, knead for 8 minutes. Place the dough in the oiled bowl and roll it around so all parts of the dough are covered in oil. Turn off the oven, and place the dough in the oiled bowl inside. Let it sit in there for 45 minutes.
6. Take dough out of oven, and turn oven back on to 170 degrees. I use a Pyrex bread pan, and I place parchment paper inside it to keep dough from sticking while cooking. I roll out the dough on waxed paper, then roll it up jelly roll-style. I put it in the bread pan, folding the ends under, and then I press it down pretty hard to get rid of any air pockets and to have the dough fill the entire pan. Don’t worry if you flatten it, because it’s going to have another rise. I turn off the oven, and place the shaped dough in the bread pan inside, and let it sit for 30 minutes.
7. I take the dough out, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. When it’s hot, put the dough in bread pan inside, and time it for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, reduce heat to 325 degrees, rotate the pan, and put it back in for a final 10 minutes.
8. After the 25 minutes of baking is complete, it should sound hollow when you thump it with your finger. Take it out, and let it sit on a cooling rack still in the pan for 30 minutes, then take it out of the pan and let it cool completely on the cooling rack.
My sourdough starter lives in a Tupperware container with a lid in the refrigerator. Before I make sourdough, in the morning I take it out, and take a fork and mix it all up–the water will often separate out, and you just mix it all back together again. You want to use it at room temperature, so I leave it on the counter for a couple of hours or so before I begin baking. If I take out one cup of starter for my recipe, I add back in a 1/2 cup white unbleached flour and a 1/2 cup warm water, and mix it all in. I do this right after I use the starter in the bread recipe, feed it, and then I let it continue to sit on the counter while the bread rises and bakes. This gives it a chance to get more active. When the bread is done, the starter goes back into the refrigerator until the next time I need it.
Hope this is useful!
Amy @ Finer Things says
Oh my goodness. I have some sourdough starter in my fridge and I’m so afraid to use it! 🙂
Jami @ An Oregon Cottage says
Shanzanne- I am going to ask about the artisan bread and I’m going to try it with all white whole wheat, so I’m not giving up on it!
Dee- You can be sure I will. 🙂
Dee says
Wow – when I first saw the picture, I immediately thought of horses hooves. I love your son’s comment…how precious. I hope you find that perfect recipe, and when you do, you’ll share it with the rest of us…Happy Valentine’s day!
Shanzanne says
That is hilarious! Thanks for sharing. I want to find a more healthful alternative to our wonderful no-knead bread as well, but its just SO delicious!