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Sourdough Five-Minute Methods

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One of the beauties of certain types of bread baking is that you can make your dough and stash it in the fridge until you’re ready to bake it.  You can mix the dough, pop it in the fridge and walk away for 8 hours to a day, then come back and punch the dough down and shape it when you’re ready.  Allow for a second rising or not, depending on what you’re making, then bake.  This is such a major help to a busy cook!  You can make the dough, using sourdough instead of yeast, when you have time and let it slowly rise and ferment in the fridge until you need to use it.  This makes the finished product entirely fermented, which is a major advantage over other recipes that need a lot of unsoaked flour added to the dough in order to make the end product have the right texture.

This method has become a boon to me.  Instead of having to make sure I begin early enough in the morning and have enough time to complete it by dinner, I can complete it at my convenience and let it hang out in the fridge until I have another few minutes to handle it again.  No more having to stop and check several times a day, making sure that the dough is rising at the right pace so that dinner won’t be late or the dough won’t over-rise.

The only draw-back is that it does require advanced planning. I cycle my baking on loaf bread and pizza crusts so that I do a large amount of one item at one time, on a day when I have time, and then freeze the extra.  I make multiple pizza crusts at once, par-bake them and then freeze the extras so I always have them on hand.  The most tedious portion of doing it this way is the baking, since I only have one pizza stone, but it really isn’t difficult at all if you’re already planning on spending some time in the kitchen anyway.

This is all based on the rising method presented in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  Instead of using yeast, sourdough culture is used so that it will be traditional.   I first encountered this method in gluten-free sourdough form on the Everything Free Eating blog’s sourdough bread recipe. If you are looking for a good bread recipe, I highly recommend hers, as it’s the one I use myself.

The only recipe I don’t do this with is my pancakes.   Due to the leavening, the rising effect would wear off if you allowed it to sit long-term in the fridge.

So, if you’re a busy cook and you’re using sourdough, I recommend you give this method a try to see if it will allow you more freedom on how you can handle your bread.  Personally, the whole concept has been liberating in that it has freed me to be able to use sourdough in more of my cooking.  It no longer feels like a major time commitment to be able to enjoy breads as part of our diet.

Disclaimer:  I do not have an affiliate relationship with Amazon and I receive no profit if you click any of the above links.

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KerryAnn Foster runs Cooking Traditional Foods, the longest running Traditional Foods Menu Mailer on the internet. KerryAnn has over nine years of traditional foods experience and is a former Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader. Founded in 2005, CTF helps you feed your family nourishing foods they will love. Each mailer contains one soup, five dinners, one breakfast, on dessert and extras. You can learn more about our Menu Mailers at the CTF website. For a free sample Menu Mailer, join our mailing list. You can also join our forum to chat with other traditional foodists and learn more.

Fermentation Friday: Sourdough Pancakes

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Between these Sourdough Pancakes and the Soaked and Veggied Blender Waffles, my kids are totally in love with breakfast again! I haven’t heard a request for cold cereal in ages, and I couldn’t be happier.

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How to Make a Sourdough Starter

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As a new feature on Cooking Traditional Foods, every Wednesday afternoon we’re going to feature one of our most popular posts from the past. There are many great articles and recipes in the archives and we hope you’ll find some new favorites.

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I have tried and tried to make sourdough the ‘traditional’ way, in the way Nourishing Traditions describes in its sourdough recipe.  I have let my starter sit out and fed and stirred it faithfully, time and time again, only to have it get moldy and fail after a period of time unless I kept it in the refrigerator.  Maybe it’s because I live in the humid South, who knows the reason.  But I have never been able to get sourdough to the point where I could bake with it and have it out on the counter so I could produce enough to use it daily.  Keeping it in the fridge just resulted in too many jars to be able to keep up with the demand of daily baking, it soured so slowly.

That is, until I tried the method Lozt Nausten, one of the moderators on the CTF forum, recommended in her wonderful sourdough bread recipe.  If you are gluten-free and you need a regular bread, I strongly suggest you look at her four versions of sourdough, including the grain-free and egg-free versions.  I have tried every version of her recipe and have enjoyed them all.

Using kefir made with apple juice instead of water to make the sourdough starter speeds the process up considerably and gives the starter a major boost of beneficial bacteria to ward off mold.  You can use the starter in as little as 24 hours if you want a very mild flavor. Allowing it to go longer while feeding it daily creates a stronger sourdough flavor.

You can use any fermentable flour to make sourdough.  Nuts and starches, like coconut, almond, tapioca starch and the like, will not ferment and can not be used for the starter but they are fine as an ingredient in the dough.  If you need a grain-free starter, you can use bean flours to make your starter.  In fact, on Lozt Nausten’s blog, you’ll see a grain-free recipe that uses bean flour to make the starter.

Sourdough pizza crust, ready to be baked

To make your starter, combine equal amounts of a flour of your choice and apple juice kefir.  2/3 cup flour and 2/3 cup apple juice kefir makes 1 cup of starter.  Leave it on the counter for 24 hours.  If you need a mild sourdough, use it to bake at that point.  If you want a stronger flavor, feed it more and let sit longer.

If you need to take a break from using the starter, stash it in the fridge and feed it once a week.  I use my starter to make pancakes, pizza, bread and much more.  In the coming weeks, we’ll be going over a variety of recipes and techniques to help you add sourdough to your meals.

 

Image adapted from Pauline Mac on flickr

Sourdough Explosion!

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This is what happens when your sourdough starter is really active.  We were in the living room when we heard the explosion over everyone cheering while playing a game on the Wii.  It sprayed the starter in a ten-foot radius.  It damaged the ceiling and took a while to clean.

I’ve never had a sourdough explosion before.  I always make my starter with equal parts apple juice kefir and freshly ground flour.  The only difference is that today I added a couple pinches of freshly-ground teff when I fed my starter.   Teff, like rye in the world of gluten, is very active when added to sourdough.  I took the remaining starter and made pizza crust for tomorrow.  I will make pancakes in the morning for breakfast.  I took a new lid and ring and loosely put it on the jar, in case it decides to do a repeat performance tonight while we’re asleep.  I put it in the middle of the bar, on a towel, with nothing near it, so if it overflows it won’t make a mess.  I’ll start the sourdough over after that, this time in a bigger container!

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This post is part of Get Real Tuesday.

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Cheap Eats- Budget Breakfasts V: Toad in the Hole

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This recipe is great for kids.  They like being able to pick it up and hold breakfast or lunch with one hand and have their cup in the other. I have no idea how this dish got its name, but I’ve heard it called this my whole life.  We prefer the scrambled version of this dish, and a dash of cheese could easily be added to the egg mixture if you are not allergic to dairy.

If you don’t have access to sourdough bread, any type of sliced bread can be used.  The thicker the bread is sliced, the more eggs you will need.

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