Learn to Bake Sourdough Bread

I had no desire to learn to bake sourdough bread. A year or so ago, a few of my friends started baking with sourdough.  Not sure how it all started, but suddenly I was looking at pictures of beautiful artisan loaves of bread.  I was impressed, but only a little bit intrigued.  I am a good cook, though I don’t really consider myself a baker. 

Aside from the annual holiday cookie day that I schedule with my mom, daughter, and grand-kids each year, the extent of my baking is an occasional apple galette when I have a dinner party, or maybe a birthday cake.  I’m a scratch cook, and I find baking very time consuming and technical for the results that I achieve.  I could just as easily bake from a box, and I’m pretty much a snob when it comes to packaged foods.  There, I said it. Packaged foods contain ingredients that I can’t pronounce.  I’d rather buy a beautiful cake from a very good bakery, than spend the time baking something from a box.  For the same reason, I had not tackled bread. 

My paternal grandmother pretty much felt that sliced bread was the worlds best invention.  It wasn’t just a cliché with her.  When I was a little girl, I remember asking her what she felt was the best invention, and she really did say sliced bread! (Of course, this was long before household computer technology.)  She told me a story of when she was young, and how they made biscuits to go with breakfast, then bread for lunch, and then rolls for dinner.  Every. Single. Day.  She spent her entire day cleaning up after one meal, and then preparing for the next.  We’ve come a long way, Baby!

On that first day of our “sheltering in place”, we had just returned from a vacation.  We had been blissfully unaware of what was happening in the world of the blossoming COVID-19.  Our larder was empty, and we decided we’d better venture out for the groceries if we were going to have to stay put for a while.  I was shocked that the shelves were empty of pretty much everything we eat.  The onions, carrots, and potatoes were all gone.  The bakery was completely wiped out of everything.  No bread, rolls, muffins…nothing!  I did my best to remain calm and not get sucked into the hysteria. 

As I’ve mentioned before, my coping default is always to take action.  So, I decided to bake my own dang bread.  I wheeled my cart to the baking isle, and NOTHING!  No yeast, flour, or sugar.  Not even a box mix.  No eggs, no milk, no butter.  No food!  What on earth was happening?  I’m still scratching my head on that one.

Well, I still had flour at home, so I figured I would just make my own Sourdough starter.  It takes a little longer to do this, but at least we’d eventually have bread for Mom and Lee.  I went on trusty Pinterest and found several recipes for making my own Sourdough starter, and I was set.

How To Make Sourdough Starter

Sourdough starter is really pretty simply.  You take 4 Tablespoons of flour, add 4 Tablespoons of water, and mix them up in a jar.  You cover it loosely with a damp towel, or a coffee filter, and leave it on the counter.  Twelve hours later, you “discard” half of it, and “feed” it another 4 Tablespoons of flour and water.  Repeat every 12 hours for several days. 

I was having trouble with the “discard” part.  Here was this precious flour that was supposed to be discarded!  How could I waste something that wasn’t even available to replace?  Then I searched, what to do with Sourdough discard.  This pretty much changed my life, and my pants size. 

I started with a simple Sourdough Cinnamon muffin.  This was my first project with the cast-off starter that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away.  These were so moist and tender, so delicious, I silently thanked the Governor for closing down our State and encouraging me to discover the world of Sourdough.

Next, I moved on to waffles.  These turned out light and crispy, and so flavorful.  We made the entire batch and put the uneaten ones in the freezer.  A couple of days later, we popped them into the toaster, and they are as fantastic toasted as they were fresh from the waffle iron, maybe even better!  This is definitely going to be on rotation in our house.

By the end of the first week, I was tired of sweet stuff.  I know, hard to believe.  I had to go on a search for savory somethings to make with my starter.  That’s when I discovered crackers.  Crackers!  They are truly my favorite vehicle for getting basically any yumminess into my mouth.  I don’t bother with sandwiches.  I eat my favorite sandwich fillings such as egg salad, chicken salad, hummus, meats and cheese, on crackers. 

My typical lunch will consist of a small bowl of whatever, along side of a plate of crackers.  I love these sourdough crackers so much.  They are endlessly customizable with any herb, spice, cheese, seed, whatever.  Each batch can be different and made to enhance your serving accompaniment. I may never buy crackers again. I actually look forward to having enough discard saved to make a batch of crackers.  I’m eating so many crackers.  When my hubby wants waffles or muffins, I have to suspend my cracker baking to save up enough discard to make them.  You could say I’m obsessed. 

I made a sourdough chocolate cake. The cake was amazing, but I didn’t love the chocolate cream cheese frosting that I paired with it. I’d say a dark chocolate butter cream, or a traditional cream cheese would have been better. But honestly, because the cake is made from sourdough, I think it’s best to leave better enough alone, and stay away from tangy toppings.

After two weeks, my starter was finally ready to rise and bake bread.  With a little anxiety, I tried my hand at my first ever homemade loaf of bread.  I was worried that it would fall, or fail to rise, and I’d end up with a solid, inedible lump. But I worried for nothing.  All that starter nurturing was rewarded with a chewy, crispy, perfectly sour round of sourdough bread.  When we were down to the last of the loaf, I made croutons to top our soup.

Now, more than two weeks later, my infatuation with sourdough is waning.  I’m getting tired of having to bake.  I did learn to bake sourdough bread. But, it’s getting too warm here in Arizona to have the oven on during the day, and I just don’t cook after dinner.  Also, as hard as it is to believe, I really don’t eat baked goods all of the time. 

I’ll enjoy an English muffin for breakfast, and that’s about it.  As I mentioned, I don’t eat sandwiches, and rarely eat bread with dinner.  And, honestly, bread is available in the stores again…so there’s that. But I might just keep my starter going to feed my cracker habit, and an occasional batch of freezer waffles. 

You can find most of these recipes on my Pinterest board I hope you also learn to bake sourdough bread. There are hundreds of great recipes out there, so if you find one you love, share the link with us in the comments!

How about you?  What cooking fear have you conquered recently?  Let me know in the comments.