The Bread of Life

I've tried several times over the past few years to make a sourdough bread, but I've never made it past the starter. Starters are pretty easy to make, you mix equal parts flour and water and let it sit to catch the natural yeast and bacteria in the air. Everyday you mix in a little more flour and water, and after about a week you have a good fermenty mixture. But, in the past, this was where I ended it. Probably because the simple idea of this invisible thing making my bread rise seemed impossible, and maybe I was afraid it just wouldn't work, and I'd feel like a failure. I have been making breads for a long time, and adding the exact measurement of active dry yeast seemed pretty easy to understand. But, being an appreciator of all things traditional, I had to figure this out. Plus, the act of fermentation produces vitamins and makes the bread easier for your body to digest. So after I saw a friend post some pictures of a beautiful sourdough she has been making for her family, I asked for the recipe. She sent me this link , and I got my starter going.

Fermentation is very interesting to me, I'm getting more and more familiar with it too.  Over the past few years I've made kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, milk and water kiefer, and now my starter. All these little helpful bacteria floating around, that when added to food, grow more and more and make your food more nutritious.

This is my sponge, the night before.  This is a percentage of the dough and all the milk for the recipe.

After letting it sit for the night, the yeasts are active and making the dough rise.

I prefer to get everything going in my stand mixer, and then take it out and add more flour to get it to the consistency I like.  I found for me, this recipe was a little too wet, but I've been working on how much flour gets the dough to my liking.  I've been adding about an extra half a cup of flour or so. I don't measure it, just keep adding some and working it in till the dough isn't completely sticking to the surface.  Then I leave it in warm place to rise.  We have an over the stove microwave, and when the light is left on (the one that shines on the stove) it stays about 80* in there.  Perfect!

Punched down, and fitted into the bread pan.

After a couple of hours or so, ready to be baked.  I'm still not sure about this whole slashing the loaf thing though, it hasn't produced that stretched out top like I see other peoples breads do.

A beautiful loaf of sandwich bread.  This was actually my best loaf yet.  I replaced two of the cups of flour with white, and it was truly almost like store bought sandwich bread, nice and soft and elastic-y.  I could even fold it in half for the kids peanut butter and jelly "tacos".

And since this is a double recipe and I only have one loaf pan at the moment, I've been freezing the second loaf till I'm ready to make it.  These are my little frozen dough balls, bigger than suggested in the link, but I'm far too lazy to roll out golf balls sized ones, and don't mind the wait for them to defrost. 

Finally, I am a sourdough bread maker!