I think you would have to be living under a rock in recent weeks not to see all of the highly decorated focaccia loaves on the internet.  Very pretty to look at for sure. I have only just dipped my toes into the world of Sourdough.  I recently mastered making the starter successfully along with a few bakes with the started and the discard. You can see my tutorial on how to make a Sourdough Starter here.

  

You then pop it into an oiled bowl, cover with cling film and set it aside to rise for about 2 hours. I am always so surprised when I see the dough rising, with no yeast involved. Its like magic to me.

 

Once risen you punch it down and press it out onto a baking sheet with sides, then cover it lightly with a tea towel and let it rise again for a further hour.

 

A the end of that time you get to make little dimples all over the surface of the bread with your fingers, divots . . . . ready for you to brush with olive oil  . . . the olive oil collects into the divots adding some scrumptiousness . . .

 

I kept it simple for this first time and just brushed it with a plain olive oil, albeit an excellent quality one and added a simple sprinkle of coarse sea salt.

 

If you wanted to you could brush it with an herby olive oil and sprinkle on extra herbs, or a pesto olive oil. I think I will do a rosemary one next time.

 

Its actually very similar to pizza dough except thicker, so I reckon there is no end to what you can top it with, or dress it up with.  I am not really into all that fancy decoration stuff though.  It might look pretty, but I prefer to keep things a bit simpler myself.

 

At any rate this is a beautiful focaccia, just nicely crusty on the outside and with a beautiful crumb . . .  and just a slight sourdough tang . . .

  

We enjoyed some squares of it simply dipped into some more of that great olive oil.  I may make sandwiches with the rest.

 

Have you tried sourdough yet or been tempted to?  If not, I can highly recommend. Once you get the hang of it, its really quite simple and there is no end to what you can do with the starter itself, and its discard! 

 

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I'm still using my sourdough starter, feeding it and discarding the excess on a daily basis.  I have managed to dry some of the discard starter as shards which I have stored in the dark recesses of my kitchen cupboard ready to reconstitute and I have made sourdough crumbs as well, again waiting in a jar in my cupboard ready to be reconstituted at a future date.  We will see how that goes! You can see my complete tutorial on how to create a Sour Dough starter here.  Why not learn something new!

 

At this time when there is such a shortage of flour and new flour is hard to come by I cannot bring myself to actually discard any of the starter, not into the bin, or the compost pile, or down the drain.   It seems like such a waste, so I have been religiously researching ways that I can use it besides pancakes and brownies.

 

I was looking on Pinterest for Biscuits that I could make.  Many of them looking spurious at best, like they had stolen someone else's photos and were representing them as their own, or they were misleading and used sour cream not sourdough discard. (I keep my sour dough discard in the refrigerator in a jar, and stir it every day.)

 

The most promising recipe I found that looked like it would work fine was this one for Easy Sourdough Biscuits on a site called Pinch My Salt.

 

I am very careful in picking any baking recipes at this time, relying mainly on tried and trues.  I really don't want to be experimenting with a precious commodity such as flour. It would kill me to waste it even more than it would to waste the starter!

  

As you can see these turned out wonderfully!  I was really pleased with them.  We enjoyed a couple right out of the oven with some butter and jam because we couldn't resist!

 

They rose beautifully and I can see where with a few additions you would be able to make savoury biscuits, such as adding some grated cheese and chopped chives.  (I hope my chives I planted grow!)

 

The others we enjoyed with some roast beef hash and baked beans. Nothing is being wasted in this house nowadays.  I have learned my lesson. I have never been truly wasteful anyways, but I understand even more now why my mother made every scrap count.

 

It was a bit of luxury skirting some cold butter over the tops of these when they came out of the oven . . . I know  . . .

 

But it was a beautiful touch and we both enjoyed the extra butteriness of this small indulgence. 

  

We need small indulgences now more than ever n'est ce pas???

 

These were delicious even a few days later.  True confession.  With there only being two of us we could not eat 8 biscuits on the day, so we had four on that day, two with jam and two with our dinner, and then the other four got eaten in the following two days, reheated as above.  Truly yummy yummy! 

One thing I have been longing to master for quite a while now is to make a working Sour Dough Starter that I can use to make my own bread with.  We are experiencing a shortage of yeast at the moment (and flour and sugar for that matter) so creating something like a sour dough starter is a skill we can all use.  I had tried once before with NO success.  I thought I would try again and I watched quite a few videos on You Tube and finally felt secure enough that I thought I could master it. (Fingers crossed)  What I am sharing with you today is the result of about two weeks trial and error and finally SUCCESS! 

 I think the real key to my success this time was using filtered water. The time before I had used tap water. I had no idea that the chlorine etc. in tap water would have a hug impact on the success of your starter.  This was something that I learned this time and it was a real boon to my success.  I just used bottled filtered water that you can buy in the shops.  Apparently you can leave tap water out on the counter top for a couple of days also. I decided not to take a chance and just used filtered water from our water storage.  What good is a Pandemic if you don't use the time in quarantine to learn a new skill!  It is my greatest hope that eventually I will be turning out really great loaves of bread with the skill of one who has been doing it all of their lives. But for now, here's my tutorial on how to get a really great starter going as well as a few ideas of what you can do with it!

 

 

Measure 50g (6 1/2 TBS) of your flour mixture into the glass jar.  Add 100g ( 3.5 fluid ounces) of the filtered water.  

  

Stir together until the mixture is completely smooth and amalgamated, scraping down the sides of the jar using your spatula frequently. 

  

Just keep smoothing, stirring and scraping until you have a completely homogenous mixture, then carefully wipe down the insides of the glass with a clean damp cloth.  (use filtered water to dampen the cloth.) 

 

Place the lid on top and set  the jar aside for 24 hours.

  

As you can see there are a few bubbles forming on the top of the flour. 

Give the mixture a good stir, replace the lid and leave it for a further 24 hours. 

 

This is what my starter looked like on the morning of day 3.  As you can see there is a lot of activity going on.  I AM EXCITED ABOUT THIS!!  Progress!  I might actually have some success this time around!

 

You will need a clean jar.  What you are going to do now is to decant 3 TBS of the live mixture into a clean jar.  Once you have done that you will need a further 70g (1/2 cup) of the whole wheat/white bread flour mix and a additional 80ml (1/3 cup) of filtered water.

 

Add this to the decanted 3 TBS of live mixture in the clean jar and give it a good stir together. This is called "feeding" it.

 

Scraping down the sides with your spatula and making sure it is all mixed together well so that there are no dry lumps or streaks.  Clean the insides of the jar with a clean piece of paper towel, moistened with filtered water . . .  so that there are no streaks up the insides of the jar . . .

 

Put the lid back on the jar and then mark the level with a rubber band on the outside of the jar.  (Look, you can see it already bubbling.)  Set it aside to work for 11 hours now.

 

Some suggested that you give your Sour Dough Starter a name.  I thought long and hard on this and decided that I am going to call mine HOPE.  Why Hope?  Because one, I really HOPE that it works for me this time, and two,  we have never needed HOPE more than we do at this time during this disheartenig World Wide Pandemic. 

I have the perfect Jar Labels to use as well. Innoveem Jam & Chutney Jar Labels.  These premium quality jar labels have a strong adhesive which means the labels won't fall off my jar.  You can write on them with any pen or biro!  They are also easy to remove, leaving no sticky mess or residue after use (HUGE plus), and the set contains some really classy Vintage shaped designs.  Perfect for this!  

I can also offer my readers a discount of 20% off if they follow this link

 to purchase and add the discount code JLABEL20  at checkout! Offer is good until the end of June.  They really are fantastic labels.  I have been using the same one on my jar of sour dough starter removing it and reapplying it every day for almost two weeks now without any problem.  Looks brand new and sticks as well as it did on the first day!

  

I am really filled with HOPE this time.  I am so excited about this.  Can you tell???  This appears to be working well for me! (Fingers crossed, I don't want to jinx myself!) 

On these next four days you will need to do the following:  

Decant 50g (about 3 TBS) to a clean jar.  Add 100g plain flour (3/4 cup) and 100g filtered water (3 1/2 fluid ounces).  Stir it vigorously.  Clean any residue from the inside of the jar using filtered water on some clean paper towels.  Cover loosely, mark the starter level with an elastic band.  Let rest for 24 hours.  (You can discard the rest of the starter in the first jar, left from the decant, or save it to make pancakes, etc.)

 

This is Day 4   I am impressed.  Look at the action!

This is Day 5  There's a fair bit of bubbling going on.  Not quite as much as yesterday.

This is Day 6.  As you can see it had risen a good inch above the red band and then fell back down again.  It has a really fermented smell to it. Not unpleasant.  Almost but not quite like an alcohol. Almost like a beer.

The starter will be ready to bake with when it rises and falls consistently for a few days in a row.  

This is Day 7.   

As you can see there is a ton of action going on! Its also getting lighter in colour because my feed has been plain strong flour rather than a mix of whole wheat and white.  I think I am now ready to bake some bread with it, but first a few pictures to show you what I have been doing with the discard.  I have a jar in the refrigerator I am keeping the discard in. Flour is so precious at the moment, I really can't bring myself to throw it away.  

You can do quite a lot with it.  King Arthur Flour has a large number of recipes and suggestion on their page. 

I have made us Sour Dough Pancakes several times.

 

  They are the best pancakes I have ever eaten. As you can see they are incredibly light and fluffy and the flavour is fantastic.  Todd enjoys his with syrup, but I am perfectly happy with them just on their own, they are that good!

  

I have also made Sour Dough Brownies.  These are incredible!

 

They are dense and fudgy like a good brownie should be.  Moist, and yet you can hold them in your hand.

  

I had thought about stirring some chocolate chips or nuts into them, but didn't this time.

 

The flavour is really nice, with just a hint of tang.

 

Having mastered the starter I figured I was ready to bake a loaf of bread.

 

I decided to start off simply with my first try at baking a loaf and I found the perfect recipe on Little Spoon Farm.

 

Baking Sour Dough bread can be a bit convulated, requiring many steps.  I thought I would do simple for the first time, and this was the perfect recipe to begin with.

 

It turned out really nice. Not bad for a loaf of bread that was 8 days in the making (counting the number of days it took for me to get the starter going!)

 

As you can see it has a really nice texture.  The crust is really nice as well.

 

Lots of lovely holes . . .  the crust is a bit chewy for Todd. He has a difficult time with anything chewy or hard.

 

I will need to find a recipe for a loaf that makes a less chewy crust  for him.   MY sister found this for me on True Sour Dough. 

I will try that the next time.  I do need want to get a few more things if I am going to bake sour dough regularly.  A proper razor for cutting slashes in the top and some proper proofing baskets, but we will see how it goes.  I don't want to spend too much money until I figure out if this is just a flash in the pan for me.  I really hope to keep it up!  

 

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