Sourdough Bread!

I am so proud of the way this loaf turned out, I can't even tell you!! I never have good luck with ANYTHING baked, so this is truly an exciting moment for me!

The time had come to use my sourdough starter again, so I looked over the 'net and combined oh...three or four ideas into one recipe that worked for the time and ingredients I had. (Quite possibly why most other baking adventures DON'T turn out!)
Even though I wrote out lots of instructions (I'm long-winded that way), this was really simple! Yay!

Sourdough Bread
1 cup sourdough starter, room temperature
3/4 cup lukewarm soymilk (most recipes say about 110 degrees)
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups bread flour or unbleached all-purpose flour*
Cornmeal

* If you think the dough is too moist, add additional flour (a tablespoon at a time). The same is true if the dough is looking dry - add warm water (a tablespoon at a time).
In a large bowl or in the bowl of a 5 quart stand mixer, combine starter, water, salt, baking soda, and bread flour.
Using dough hook, mix everything together into a uniform dough.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until elastic, about 15 minutes.
Place the dough in a lightly oiled large bowl.
Place a damp towel over the bowl and then cover with plastic wrap (the humidity in the bowl helps in the rising process).
Let rise until it doubles in volume, approximately 4 to 8 hours (depending on the temperature and the starter used, the rising time can vary as much as 2 hours).
Sourdough rises more slowly than yeast bread; Always remember, the longer the rise time, the more sourdough flavor. I actually forgot mine all afternoon, it raised about 6 hours...
After dough has risen, remove from bowl, and place on a lightly floured board. Knead in flour to feed it one more time before baking.
Shape dough into a loaf shape or round ball, and place on a cookie sheet that is dusted with cornmeal.
Cover with oiled plastic wrap and place in a warm spot to rise until doubled in size, approximately 1 to 3 hours.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
After rising, slash the bread with a bread razor or a very sharp knife making three 1/2-inch deep diagonal slashes.
Brush or spray the top of the bread with cold water and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until nicely browned.
Remove from oven and place the bread on a wire rack to cool. Let baked loaf cool for 30 minutes.

Back-To-School and SOURDOUGH PANCAKES!

My Sprouts started school today, and in a burst of domestic-Betty-Crocker-like inspiration I offered to make pancakes! (You have to understand, none of us are morning people around here. Muffins and smoothies are usually our grab-n-go breakfast of choice - and necessity.) Pancakes are usually reserved for weekends.

But... I'm the lucky owner of sourdough starter now, and I was just dying to try it out!

See, last week, I happened on the positively drool-worthy sourdough pancakes and waffles over on VegChic's Blog.

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So of course, I had to whine about wanting my own sourdough starter. Well, Jody was wonderful and generous enough to actually send me some starter!!

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Starter in the MAIL? In the summer? I imagined exploding packages and messy mailboxes and wasn't all that sure it would work.

But she had heard that you can dry some of the starter out into a dry dough and ship it, and it can be resurrected into liquid starter with warm water, flour and a few hours of time... It was sort of an experiment for both of us.

Well, when my starter 'dough' arrived, I was excited, but a bit skeptical too - it was just a flat piece of leathery bready dough about the size of my hand - was this really going to work?

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I slowly added warm water and flour until the leathery dough was incorporated into the liquid, per instructions, and just a few hours later, my starter was bubbling away all happy-like.

So, this morning I made pancakes for my kids and they turned out perfect and wonderful and fluffy and yummy!

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THANKS SO MUCH VEGCHIC!

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Sourdough Pancakes

1 cup soymilk

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sourdough starter

At least 6 hours before using, stir together starter, milk and 1/2 cup flour.
Let stand out overnight.
When ready to cook, preheat griddle, add remaining ingredients to sour dough batter. Adjust flour or soymilk to make correct consistancy. (You can let the dough rest for an hour here if you want, I didn't.)
Pour a scoop of batter for each pancake onto lightly oiled griddle.
Cook aprox. two minutes on each side.

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I didn't have any whole-wheat flour, I think that would have made them a bit more hearty, (the way I like pancakes), but my kids thought they were in Heaven with "white pancakes". And hey, I was dying to try the starter, so I figured it was a good excuse. We even had REAL maple syrup to go with! (Major luxury around here!).

So that's how we started our Back-To-School day. The sourdough starter is bubbling away again and everyone's well fed and happy.

Oh.

Except the dog.

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Pffft.

He managed to dig quite a large hole in our gravel driveway and in the process of destroying the driveway, ripped a good chunk off one of the pads on his front paw.

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Ouch! Did you not notice you were hurting yourself, silly pup?

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He has to wear a 'lampshade' collar for a few days to give that paw a chance to heal. Of course he's so humiliated all he will do is look at me disdainfully, sulk on the couch and grunt little complaining sounds...