Sourdough bread

We've started up a new sourdough starter recently - we weren't using the last one often enough after a while to warrant keeping it going.  It's still a young starter, but old enough to start using.  The starter is about as basic as they come.  A cup of flour, a cup of warm water, a bit of sugar and some yeast to get it going (the commercial yeast isn't necessary, but depending on where you live, the wild yeasts in the air may not result in a good sourdough).

One thing different this time is that we are no longer using the quick yeasts that are so prevalent these days.  I actually found a grocery store that sells the old style dry yeast - in the big, vacuum packed package, too, rather than the little jars.  So I've got enough to last us a good long time.  I've since discovered they carry wet yeast cakes, too, which I definitely want to experiment with.  The store carries them in blocks the same size and shape as a pound of butter.

The quick yeast that most grocery stores carry now do not need to be softened before being added to the bread.  That makes things faster and more convenient, but there is a definite difference in how the bread rises.  We prefer the old style yeast.  They come in the same little round granules, but the old style yeast granules are much larger.  The faster acting the yeast, the smaller the granules.  Some look almost like a fine sand.

Anyhow.  Back to the starter.

We like to give a new starter at least 3 days to a week before we start using it for cooking.  (Reminder: when working with sourdough, avoid metal bowls, implements, etc.  Glass, plastic or ceramic containers that can be loosely covered, never sealed, are fine to keep your starter.  When actually cooking with a starter, try to stick to wood or plastic tools.)  It gets fed a bit of flour, water and a touch of sugar every day for the first few days, then ever other day or so, or after each use.

Usually, when we bake bread with sourdough, we just modify our basic bread recipe.  This time, I tried a sourdough bread recipe from The Sourdough Cookbook by Rita Davenport.  It has a lot of excellent recipes, including different types of starters, and I highly recommend it.

The main difference between this recipe and others I use is the overnight sponge.  Not something I've taken the time to do before.  The overnight starter is as follows:

1 cup starter
2 cups warm water
2 1/2 cups flour

Mix it all together in a large bowl, loosely cover it (with a cloth is fine, but my bowl has its own lid, which I just placed on top, without sealing it).  Leave the covered sponge in a warm place overnight.  We use our oven with the light left on. Don't skimp on the bowl size.  The sponge will expand quite a bit, then settle down to a smaller size.  The overflow is not easy to clean up! *L*

For the rest of the recipe, you'll need:

1 cup milk
3 Tbsp butter (the recipes adds "or margarine" but really... ew)
3 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp yeast
1/4 cup warm water
6-7 cups flour
oil for tops of loaves

Scald the milk (heat it until bubbles start to form along the edge of the saucepan, but don't let it boil), then melt in the butter.  Set aside to cool for about 10 minutes.

After 5 minutes, put your yeast into the warm water and leave it to soften and bubble for 5 minutes.

Add the softened  yeast and cooled milk and butter mixture to the overnight sponge.  Beat until blended.  Beat in 3 cups of flour until smooth.  Cover loosely and set aside in a warm, draft free place for 30-40 minutes, or until almost doubled.

Stir down the dough and start adding the remainder of the flour a little at a time.  When the dough is too thick to stir in any more flour, turn onto floured surface and knead.  Add more flour if necessary.  A sourdough dough is slightly wetter and stickier than regular bread dough, but it should still be easy to knead.  Keep kneading for 8 or 10 minutes.  Get a good arm work out in. ;-)  The dough should be smooth and elastic when it's ready.  I find this particular recipe has a wonderful, satiny feel when it's ready.

The recipe says to divide the dough in half, but I didn't bother.  Cover the dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.  Prepare your pans while you wait.  You can use two 9x5 loaf pans, but I used a 9x13 baking tray.  I only have 8x4 glass pans, so the amount of dough was too big for 2 of my pans, but too small to use 3 of them.

Form your loaves and place into your prepared pans.  I made two loves by rolling half the dough into a long rope, then folding it in half and twisting the two ends around each other.  After pinching the ends together, I lay them on my baking tray.  Lightly oil the tops, then cover your loaves and let rise for about an hour (we needed less then that).  Preheat your oven to 375F (190C). (Remember to reduce the temp by 25 degrees if you're using glass loaf pans.)  Bake for 45-50 minutes if you're doing the 9x5 loaf pans.  Our loaves, stretched out as they were, took about 35 minutes to bake.  With loaves, if they're already golden brown by 30 minutes, loosely cover them with a foil tent for the remainder of the baking time.  You can tell if they're ready by removing them from the pan and tapping the bottom.  If it sounds hollow, it's done.

Though it's not necessary, I've taken to keeping a foil pie pan of water on the lower rack while baking.  My oven has some pretty drastic hot and cold spots.  The steam from the water helps keep an even temperature throughout the oven, as well as making for a nice crust.

The bread we got with this recipe was much nicer than our usual breads.  The texture is just lovely.  As a white flour bread, it's a bit too delicate to for a hearty sandwich, but is great with soups and toasted.  I think I'd like to experiment with this recipe using blends of different flours.  It's definitely a winner with the family, though, just as it is!