sourdough recipes & wild starters! - Page 3

[OceanMomma]

I meant rye for the starter & then just pure rye flour for the bread. My other starter is a wheat one so I wanted to have one of each.

[chlobo]

Do you guys soak your wheat as well? Or do you do sourdough in place of soaking the wheat?

[OceanMomma]

The sourdough process lacto ferments the flour without having to soak it first.

[bigknitwit]

I'm a sourdough novice. I started my starter last week at per the instructions in NT (add a cup of rye flour and a cup of water each day, change bowls and stir). I've been covering loosely with a hand towel. I'm not sure if mine is bubbly or not. I know it was bobbly one day, but I'm not so sure about the others. Also there are portions that are darker than others in the mixture. The smell has remained consistent (pretty strong) throughout the process. How do I know if I've created something toxic instead of something healthy??! I was going to try and make something from it tomorrow...

[OceanMomma]

I have wondered about that as well. I think you just have to go by your nose. If it smells offensive, toss it & start again. Otherwise, if there is anything dodge in there, the heat of baking it will probably kill it anyways.

[bigknitwit]

I'm so lost. I decided to give my starter a try. However I'm havinga difficult time figuring out what to do with it. I'm used to bread machine baking, but know nothing about baking sourdough. My books aren't helping much...

So here's what I did:

1C starter
4C whole wheat flour
1.5C water

I mixed this until it was a basic doughish consistency. Not sure if I should be actually kneading it or just combining.

I gather I need to let this stand for 24 ish hours. and then add more flour, salt, etc and let rise again? For how long the second time? Help!!

[carnelian]

Hmm, a second rising time is not usually necessary. Rather kneading, putting it into the loaf pans, letting it rise 12-24 hrs and then baking for an hour or so.

bigknitwit the strong smell means a good starter. Like oceanmomma said if it's not offensive it's fine.

Oceanmomma how did your all-rye work out?

[OceanMomma]

bigknitwit reading thru what you've written, I think you are confusing the second rising with what I would call the rising But then it's been a very long day of which I spent 6 hrs driving so I may be missing it altogether.

Sourdough is real simple to make. Just mix the starter, some flour & some water to a pancake batter consistency. Leave until it gets bubbly which is usually a good 3 -4 hours. Take some out at this point to save as your new starter. Mix salt, flour & more water into the remaining mixture to get a bread dough. Knead this until it gets springy & leave it to rise. Then bake.

Carnelian my all rye turned out good I think. It didn't rise that much but I left the starter out by accident afterwards in a closed jar & it has become a lot more intense smelling. I am going to try again on friday when I have a day at home hopefully.

[bigknitwit]

Ok my maiden sourdough is still not completed. I found a recipe that had me add some of starter, flour, and water together and let sit for 24 hours. I did this and it did actually rise "a little bit." Then today I added some more flour, salt, honey, and a touch or baking soda. Now it's rising again for 3-4 hours (or so the recipe said to do), and then I'll cook it. Here's the recipe link:

http://www.recipegoldmine.com/sourdo...urdough20.html

Now I still have a TON of starter on my kitchen counter (I was adding 1 cup flour to my starter mixture every day for 7 days). I suppose I should save some and make the rest into something....

[OceanMomma]

I only use organic whole flour of some kind ( usually wheat or spelt ), a touch of salt & water in my sourdoughs. Traditionally those were the only ingredients. Heaps easier & I never measure anything. I use all the starter I make other than the bit I leave for next time. I've never seen baking soda used in sourdough either.

I guess if you've got loads of starter left, you could make some muffins or something like that with it.

[OceanMomma]

Apparently you can freeze the culture when you aren't using it as well.

[carnelian]

I've never had much starter left after using it for bread. I usually make about 3 loaves at a time.

The pancakes sound good. Do they fluff up nicely? Found a recipe for sourdough crumpets that I might just try.

Pulled another batch of loaves from the oven today. Looks good

[OceanMomma]

I'm making some rye bread again today. The culture has a really powerful aroma of bananas. I am going to try to make some of that Espresso al Cioccolato bread.

[oldermamato5]

I am really enjoying this thread.

[mom2zsel]

Success!

OK-so I have been watching this bowl of flour and water for a week now. I felt brave tonight and tried to make it into pizza dough.

It was great even my Food-Critic-Kids loved it! I can share my "procedure" if anyone wants-I just kind of guessed at amounts because I really felt that it wouldn't turn out.

I was getting ready to order $80 worth of Sourdough Pizza crusts through my buying club-now I don't have too!!

[bigknitwit]

Hey Oceanmomma have you ever considered adding a tbsp or 2 of vital wheat gluten to your all rye sourdough? I'm wondering if it might help it rise a little more (it works great in traditional whole wheat bread making).

[OceanMomma]

I try to avoid gluten as Dad was a celiac so I would never add it to anything. I would rather just put some wholewheat flour in it if I had to. One loaf of sourdough bread a week is pretty much all the grains we eat & maybe one other thing with grains in such a rice with one meal or oatmeal one day on the weekend. I really try to avoid using grains as a staple food.

I am reporting back on the Espresso al Cioccolato bread. It has come out really well. So bang goes our weekend oatmeal this week I'll post a recipe later if anyone is interested.

[mom2zsel]

Originally Posted by OceanMomma

I really try to avoid using grains as a staple food.
I am reporting back on the Espresso al Cioccolato bread. It has come out really well. So bang goes our weekend oatmeal this week I'll post a recipe later if anyone is interested.

Oh, please do post that recipe-sounds yummy!

Hope not too OT-And, if you don't mind, please share what you eat at meals to keep the grains to a minimum. We have been moving away from grains for a couple of months-avoiding wheat, too. I have breakfast and lunch meals down, just struggle a bit coming up with a variety of dinner meals-thanks!

[OceanMomma]

What I did was made a sponge with the rye starter with approx 1 cup of rye, the starter out of the jar & enuf water to make a batter. Left that until it was all bubbly.

After taking out a bit for next time, I added, approx 1/2 c cocoa powder, 1 c of strong coffee, 1 c raisins, a tsp salt, a few tbsp of the horse's mollasses ( shhh don't tell dh but I'd run out of the people one ) & enuf rye flour to make a dough. I then kneaded this for a while. Until it felt sort of springy. I left it overnight & the next day to rise. It didn't really rise noticeably but when I baked it it did.

Preheat the oven to 200degC ( note here this is centigrade not fahrenheit ), bung in the bread which I put in a loaf shape on a baking tray. Bake for 10 mins & turn down to 180degC. Bake until done which will most likely be another 30 mins or so but check after about 20.

I think you could add some presoaked walnuts to it which would be nice. I had mine with raw butter & some raw pecorini romano cheese I found in the supermarket.

Re: dinners without grains. Right now it is potato season here & they taste so good if you grow your own. So we have things like last night we had pan fried hapuka, mashed purple potatoes & fried kale. Then we had tamarillos marinated in manuka honey for pudding. Sometimes I will do roast cauliflower as the starchy part of the meal. Or kumara or yams basically some kind of root vege. dh is very plain in his food tastes so he pretty much likes meat, potatoes & a vege. I used to cook loads of curries & stuff like that but he'd never eat them & the kids started picking up on the negativity so I figured I needed to work in with what everyone eats that is healthy & what I can grow or buy that is grown locally.

Cheese omlettes with salad & some kind of green vege in season & maybe some carrots is another grain free meal. I make beef stews with beef, chicken or beef broth & whatever I have in the garden such as onoins, garlic, carrots, soup peas, kale, leeks. Roast rooster with roasted veges in another meal, then you make broth with the carcass & have the leftovers with potato salad the next day. Shepherds pie is aonther good meal. Mashed potatoes, kumara & pumpkin with some grated nutmeg & lots of butter is real nice with things.

In the summer we don;t have potatoes as they aren't ready. Well other than jersey bennes around about xmas. So we tend to eat more egg dishes, roast summer veges from the garden etc.

[carolynrosa]

I'm trying to figure this whole sourdough thing out, but my mother keeps insisting I'm doing it wrong! She says I have to knead the dough until it smooth, shiny ball forms. I'm kneading it about 10-15 minutes, but when I shape it into a ball, it isn't perfectly smooth. It sorta has a little celulite, small dimples. It's not lumpy or anything....
I'm afriad if I over-knead it, I'll get tough bread? Any opinions?
Also, She says I need to let it rise until doubled, and then punch it down a few minutes, and then re-rise again a few more hours and then bake. Is that right? I've look at a couple recipes online, and mostly, they said to proof the sponge, add flour, knead, rise 12-24 hours, and bake. Is it that simple? Or do I need to be doing everything differently?
I'm on my second loaf, about to bake later tonight. The first didn't rise much and was too dense. I'm trying again with a recipe that called for a bit of commercial yeats added. I feel like I'm cheating, though.
Any good, simple recipes???