It's been a while since I've had the luxury of daily check-ins with TFL. Lots going on this summer, and actually I really don't have the time even now! But I made some sourdough sandwich bread today for the first time (so far I have only made rustic loaves with my starter), and I wanted to get the recipe written down and share it with anyone else who might like it.
I tried another batch of bread with my new white starter. This time, the basic sourdough from BBA. I just replaced the barm in the book's formula with my own starter, since it seems to be about the same consistency. I made the firm starter yesterday and let it rise on the counter for 4 hours, at which point it had doubled. So into the fridge it went. This morning I took it out, cut it into pieces, and let it sit for an hour, then I used the KA mixer to mix the dough. I used KAF Bread flour and gray sea salt.
I used some of my starter that would have been discarded last night during refreshment to make some english muffins. I found this recipe about 3 years ago on the KAF Baking Circle. It was submitted by a user going by the name chard. It makes great english muffins!
Last night we had some mashed potatoes. I had just read the BBA pugliese formula recently, and thought that I would make it with some of the leftovers. Well, as it happens, I found the Potato Rosemary bread on my way to the pugliese, and it also contains mashed potatoes! Then I saw that the general formula for the biga makes enough for both the pugliese and the potato rosemary breads. And then I discovered that my leftover potatoes weighed EXACTLY as much as the amounts called for in the two recipes. A sign from the universe, perhaps? So I made t
I want to post here how I started my sourdough starter, and what happened throughout the process, so I can come back and review if necessary later.
All amounts are weight measurements measured on my Salter scale. All water is Brita-filtered water at room temperature. Starter is rotated between two Mason jars with each feeding so jar is always kept fairly clean and sludge-free. Ring cap is placed loosely on jar after feeding.
