'Tis The Season For Sourdough
More time indoors and the scent of fresh baked bread
Nothing smells quite so good or stirs up as much nostalgia for me, than fresh baked bread. As a child growing up, I woke up to that delightful smell every week. The power of such scent memories to trigger our sense of wellbeing is amazing.
My mother would get up early and by the time I was crawling out of bed hours later, the house was filled with the smell of baking. I marveled back then at how she did it. Looking back today, I realize just how lucky I was to grow up this way.
Now with the prospect of more time inside over the winter months, the idea of filling the house with that fresh baked bread smell has a lot of appeal to me. Well homemade bread inspired not just by the longer darker days, but also because bagels are now $5.75 at the store and sheesh that is getting simply ridiculous for holey bread that seems to be getting smaller every month.
The challenge is that I eat very little bread overall. So making my own these days seems like overkill. But lately when I have been eating my bagels, I feel hungry a short while later. Has the ingredients changed to include something more addictive in nature? Or is the size getting so small that it’s not enough?
Then my sister commented that she switched from store bread to buying at the bakery. She said she’s eating less bread and feeling more satisfied just by making that change.
All these things combined have me thinking it’s time to dust off my baking pans and make some bread. With my interest in gut health, and how that influences both the mind and body, this seemed like the perfect time to try making sourdough.
Could homemade sourdough be the solution to rising costs, shrinking bagels and improved health? It’s time to find out.
My sourdough adventure begins
It just so happened that I recently began a Homesteadliving.com subscription and they’ve been promoting Lisa Bass’s book: Daily Sourdough, healthy recipes for every meal. I put it on pre-order and waited.
In the meantime, I tried to learn a thing or two about creating sourdough starters and what equipment might make the job easier. I found a lovely set of glass sourdough starter jars that make tracking the starter very easy (shopping links at the end of the post).
Most everything arrived at the same time and began trying to figure out how sourdough starter was going to fit into my already busy life.
The first disappointment for me was realizing it could take a week or more to make a new sourdough culture. Surely not the end of the world, but I went in search of some way to get started faster (which of course is the polar opposite sentiment of slow food sourdough! Oh well).
Turns out you can sidestep the slow starter journey if you want to (and I did) with a simple dry active yeast hack. Here’s how I adapted it for my needs:
Quick Sour Dough Starter
60g flour
60g warm water
1 tsp active dry yeast
Yield: 120g starter
Fast. Easy. And wickedly bubbly starter ready to the point of feeding to grow it larger. From this point, I just kept adding the same amount of flour and water by weight for a few days until I had enough starter to try a recipe. Over time, wild yeasts will create the nuanced blend of flavors unique to my environment. In the meantime, I was able to get started in a fraction of the time (and didn’t need to spend money buying a dried sourdough starter online).
Regular feeding becomes the next step. Sourdough starter is a living culture. If it’s on the kitchen counter, it needs food daily. In the fridge (and depending on how wet you leave the mix) you can extend that to once a week or even once a month as
mentioned in her note. I am totally curious to know how once a month goes for readers who are bakers out there!The next “shocker” for me was that most of the recipes in Lisa’s book take two days - meaning the dough sits overnight. What? Clearly I have a LOT to learn about great sourdough bread!
In the meantime, I needed some solutions that would let me try this and not have to predict my schedule from one day to the next. I pulled out my Hamilton Beach bread maker and discovered it has an “artisan dough” setting which runs 5 hours. Bonus! But you could use any bread maker with a dough setting and then just rise the dough in a separate bowl.
I carefully weighed out the ingredients for French bread, hit the artisan setting and viola - 5 hours later I had well proofed dough. I kneaded and shaped the loaves, and proceeded to bake it. The dough could have easily sat and risen for longer, but the bread turned out great all the same. Lesson? Sourdough is incredibly resilient and flexible!
I kept exploring. I learned in short order that sourdough that has gone through that first critical proofing (in the bread machine - or by hand and resting) can stay covered in the fridge for days (up to 5!) until you are ready to finish proofing and baking.
I think this is the biggest game changer of them all for me. I made pizza dough one day. Three days later I divided it into 4, rolled out one dough ball for dinner and wrapped and froze the rest. Sure enough, the frozen sourdough worked like a charm when thawed at room temperature.
This weekend I have tortillas dough that’s been resting in the fridge for a few days now. I can hardly wait to see how these turn out. Next will be naan, and by then I should be brave enough to tackle bagels. It is all a work in progess.
Making it my own
So just to state the obvious here, I am not an expert sourdough baker, LOL.
However, I hope that by sharing my experiences of bending the sacred sourdough rules you might get inspired to tackle whatever healthy cooking or baking adventure has been on your back burner for months (years?).
While I absolutely love the recipes and illustrations and wisdom in Lisa’s book (and I highly recommend it as a gift to the bread maker in your life), I somehow needed to adapt it to my life where knowing my schedule a day or two in advance is rare.
I think the magic of sourdough is that, although it’s been written down and quantified into steps and weights and measures that give a beginner like me solid grounds for success, the art itself is ancient. Sourdough feels like a direct connection to ancient wisdom that nurtured human development for thousands of years.
I am looking forward to seeing if my homemade bread creates the kinds of differences my sister reported by switching to bakery bread. I can already say that even though my first attempt at French bread had its issues, I was satisfied with just two pieces off the flattened loaf (which surprised me).
Do you have a baking or cooking adventure shaping up this winter? Leave a comment and/or link to your post so we can all take a look and share the journey with you.
For your shopping needs and gift giving ideas- here are the amazon affiliate links to the products I use:
Lisa Bass’s book: Daily Sourdough
Artcome: Sourdough starter jar set
Accuweight digital scale (I’ve had mine for 4 years and it’s going strong)
In the coming weeks, here at The Naturalized Human, we are going to explore:
How each of your senses (Touch, Taste, Smell) contribute to your microbiome
Options for getting that dose of nature inside your own home, when it’s too cold be outside for long
Whether our pets are contributing to our health, or if they are simply mirrors of our inadequate environments and lifestyles
AND - Keep an eye out for some how-to videos that I am working on (for paid subscribers) - I am looking forward to adding some more resources like these to this newsletter in the coming months.