Basic White Bread Recipe

Ingredients:
* 2 Cups of sponge (proofed starter)in a large bowl
* 3 Cups of unbleached flour
* 2 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
* 1 Tablespoon sugar
* 2 teaspoons of salt

To the sponge, add sugar, salt, and oil. Mix well, then knead in flour a half-cup at a time. You want to make a good, flexible bread dough. I use a food processor with the dough blade. I put in the dry ingredients first, turn on the processor and then add the wet ingredients. Watch for dough to form a ball and clear the sides. Process for 40 seconds, let rest a couple minutes and then process again for 40 seconds. Add more flour as needed. If you are going completely rustic... go at it with sleeves rolled up, bare hands and a floured board!

After the food processor (or kneading by hand), cover bowl loosely with a towel and let rise in a warm place, such as in your oven with the light on. In an hour or so, check to see if the dough doubled in size. Remember, sourdough is much slower than a yeast dough so this could take several hours. It is ready when a finger poked into the top of the dough creates a pit that spring back, it leaves a hole.

If you've used a food processor to mix and knead your dough, you are ready to gently deflate the dough and shape it for either a loaf pan or make a round for lightly greased baking sheet. Cover lightly with a towel again, and let rise in a warm place until almost doubled in size. Using a sharp razor blade, slash the top of the loaf diagonally (this will allow it to expand more easily while baking). If you are hand kneading, then you will need to deflate the dough gently and knead again then follow the directions above in shaping, slashing, and resting till almost doubled.

Once almost doubled, place in cold oven, turn dial ato 350 degrees and bake for approximately 45 minutes. When baked the loaf will be nicely brown and sound hollow when tapped with knuckles. This could take more or less time depending upon your altitude, the *real* temperature of your oven, etc. (It is best to purchase an oven temp gauge. There are a good bit of ovens that run either hotter or colder than the temp you set it at.)

What is a "sourdough sponge"? A " sourdough sponge" is just a bowl of warm, fermented sourdough batter. Several hours before you plan to make your dough, you need to make a sponge. (Note that a sourdough sponge is different from a sponge or preferment made with commercial yeast that sets out overnight) Some recipes call for a sponge, others do not. For the recipes that do use a sponge, this is how you make your sponge:

1. Take your starter out of the frig and pour the entire thing into a large glass bowl. Meanwhile, use this opportunity to wash the jar and dry it. A good idea is to sanitize it at this point by pouring boiling water over it, since you don't want other unwelcome beasties growing in there, competing with your wild yeast for food.

2. Add a cup of warm water and a cup of flour to the bowl. Stir well, and set it in a warm place for several hours. This is called *proofing*. An option is to put the bowl in your cold oven with the light on.

3. Do a sniff test: watch for froth and give it a good sniff. If the sponge is bubbly, has a white froth, smells a little sour, then you are good to go.

Things to keep in mind: proofing-times vary greatly. Some starters can proof in an hour while some take 8 hours or longer. The key is getting to know your individual living entity (your starter). It will take several tries for you to learn the idiosyncrasies of the one you've created. Another point is if you are going to bake in the morning, set your sponge out to proof overnight. Timing is the key, and knowing where your starter is in its life-cycle is crucial for success.

Basic White Bread:

Ingredients:
*1/4 cup sourdough starter
*1 cup lukewarm water
*2 Tablespoons sugar
*1 1/2 teaspoons salt
*1 1/4 tablespoons melted shortening or olive oil
*3 cups unbleached flour

Put starter in large bowl, add remaining ingredients in the order listed. Use only enough flour to make the dough easy to handle. Knead on floured surface until the dough is smooth and elastic. (or use a food processor and the dough blade. Place dry ingredients in first, start processor and add wet ingredients. Process until dough forms a ball and clears the sides. May need to add more flour. Process 40 seconds, let rest a couple minutes, process 40 seconds again.) Let rise, covered, in a greased bowl in a warm place,until almost doubled. Knead again if doing by hand. Shape loaf into a 9" round & place in 9" greased cake pan or on a lightly greased baking sheet. Let rise again. Preheat oven at 375 degrees. Place a shallow pan of boiling water on the bottom rack and place loaf above. Bake for approx. 35 minutes or until done. In 15 minutes, take shallow pan out of oven. When done, loaf should be golden brown and sound hollow when tapped with knuckles.

This information can be found in almost every sourdough book that was printed in the last century:

For a crustier bread,(if not using a cloche) place a shallow pan of boiling water on the oven floor or quickly spray a mist of water into the oven every five minutes during the first half of the baking time.

Adjusting the taste: Sourdough comes in a variety of flavors, depending on what species of yeast and bacteria you've managed to capture. Adjust the taste by allowing the starter to ferment for longer or shorter periods of time. This lets the yeast and bacteria add more or less of their unique flavors.

Drying the starter: using your starter that has been fed the day before, spread a paper-thin layer onto a sheet of plastic wrap and let it set a day or two until it dries. Break into flakes and store in a plastic baggie in a dry place. You may place a tablespoon of flakes in several baggies and give to friends! All it takes is 1 tablespoon to start a new starter.

To reconstitute the starter, put a tablespoon of flakes into a glass bowl. Mix the flakes with 1 tablespoon of lukewarm water to form a paste. Mix into the paste another cup of lukewarm water, then stir in one cup of flour. Mix well. Cover the bowl lightly (not air-tight) and put in a warm spot where the temperature is 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit and let set overnight.

In the morning there should be bubbles covering the surface. If so, you now have a starter. Feed and nurture per directions in module above "How to Care for Your Starter".

Handy recipe conversion link: click here

Convert a recipe to sourdough: Take all of the liquid in your recipe, stir in 2 tablespoons of starter. Add the same amount of flour as the liquid. Let this set, covered, overnight at room temperature. The next day, add the remaining ingredients and finish your recipe.

Anyone who has a sourdough starter, had seen hooch. What is it and how did it get there? When the starter goes quiet,the mixture separates into a layer of flour, and a layer of water with a touch of alcohol, aka: hooch. (sniff and you'll see).

If there isn't too much, you stir the hooch in with the layer of flour when you feed your starter. If it is alot, either throw it out and start over or change the water:flour ratio of your starter. Add more flour and less water. Another option is to mix the hooch and flour layer, take out a tablespoon of it and place it in a clean quart canning jar. Add 3/4 cup water and 1 cup unbleached flour and take care of as a new starter for a couple days. It should bounce back nice and healthy.

Where did the term come from? Its an abbreviation of Hoochinoo, an Alaskan Indian people who made liquor. Supposedly the tribe was a source of illegal alcohol during prohibition. Alaska wasn't a state back then, so they weren't under the rules the rest of the nation was. From AskOxford.com

Oh my all the flours! All purpose comes in bleached or unbleached, also organic unbleached unenriched unbromated! Then bread flour aka strong flour. Durum, Semolina, whole wheat, rye, barley... aye yi yi! I only want to make a nice sourdough loaf! Which do I choose?!

Unbleached flour contains more protein than bleached, both can be all purpose flours. Bread (or strong flour) has an even higher protein
content. (protein content is important is certain recipes) If you are going for nutrition, whole wheat is the way to go. Unbleached flour is better for breads. But, it's not just the protein content that makes a difference. When flour is bleached, the process destroys a lot of enzymes in the grain. Those enzymes are helpful in the fermentation/rising process. The chemicals affect the gluten strength of the flour, so bread makers often prefer unbleached flour. Interestingly the use of chlorine, bromates, and peroxides are not allowed in the European Union. So if there is a problem with *rising*, I'd consider using unbleached. Unbleached flour is great for bread, cakes, cookies, etc. . . . and the environment will thank you for using it over bleached.

Flour is bleached with approximately a 500 ppm concentration of chlorine. Public drinking water averages a chlorine concentration of about 1 ppm and public swimming pools and spas are usually somewhere
around 5 ppm. The bleaching of wheat flour involves a concentration of chlorine that is about 100 x as strong as pool water. Yuck! Also, brominating the flour destroys the helpful enzymes. I personally use
organic unbleached unenriched unbromated strong (bread) flour and the same in all purpose from a mill. I get the best breads and rolls from those flours. For more information on bleaching flour, see everthing2.com

Here is a link for a page that approximates the protein content of the different flours (it is cached) ProteinComparisons. Here is a link to a test done with popular brand flours, bleached and unbleached: theartisan.net. The one with the highest score was the Gold Medal all purpose unbleached flour from California. Now had they put in the organic flours I buy, it would have been a different story. LOL (wink wink)

A quick answer: unbleached bread flour for making bread. To go that extra step, get organic unbleached unbromated unenriched bread flour. To feed your starter, unbleached all purpose is just fine.

Now some science:
Bread flour or high-gluten flour contains a high percentage of gluten-forming proteins and give the lightest, highest, and chewiest breads. It should be used for yeast breads but not quick breads. Yeast breads need the additional strength provided by the strong gluten proteins, whereas this would be what would make a quickbread tough and rubbery.

All-Purpose Flour has been blended from high and low protein wheat flour to produce a reliable and decent result with a variety of baking. Remember, all-purpose flour will vary in protein content between brands, as well as geographical location. Some people choose to only have one flour in their kitchen so they pick all-purpose and then add vital wheat gluten to increase the strength of the flour for yeast breads. All purpose is available in a bleached or unbleached form.

Cake/Pastry Flour is produced from soft winter wheat. It is a flour high in starch and low in protein. This helps to produce a tender and soft cake/pastry. Cake flour is strongly bleached with chlorine dioxide to make it produce a stronger starch gel. This causes the starch granules to absorb more moisture in high sugar batters. This also causes fat to bind more readily to the starch surface, making the fat distribute more evenly. The chlorine treatment leaves behind a trace of hydrochloric acid in the flour. This tends to give batters an acid pH and a slightly acid taste. To get away from this, some make their own cake flour using unbleached all purpose. With one cup of all purpose unbleached flour, take out 2 tablespoons and replace it with 2 tablespoon of cornstarch. Voila! You've just reduced the gluten forming proteins and lightened up your flour!

Whole Wheat Flour is flour that has been milled from the whole wheat kernel. It has a lower percentage of usable protein because the flour contains other elements such as the outer layer of the kernel (wheat bran) and the germ. The bran and germ particles interfere with gluten formation so the end product is a more dense but flavorful bread. Thus whole wheat flour should be combined with a high-gluten flour when making whole wheat bread for best results. Nutrition-wise, 100% whole wheat is the way to go, but the majority of people like to eat soft breads and not bricks. (I hear all the WW fans out there!)

Ah, many bakers and cooks have asked that question! There are many factors involved. Different brands and geographic locations affect flour. Also there are different ways that people measure ingredients. One has to measure exactly as the author of the recipe. What oftentimes is not told is if the author scooped or dipped. Did they dip the measuring cup into the flour and level off, or did they spoon the ingredient into the measuring cup? (The latter will have less flour). Some flours absorb more moisture. Even oven temperatures are different. Oftentimes an oven will be hotter or colder than what it is set at. It's good to have an oven temp gauge to check if you are having poor results like the outside of the bread getting done but the inside is still *raw.* I could go on, but you get the point.

Recipes are shared to get us started, then considering all the factors, we must adjust recipes to get the desired result. Do not despair, eventually we get a *feel* for what something is suppose to be like and can make the minor adjustments of more or less liquid, etc. The key is to keep trying!

Here is an excerpt from 'Bread Science'(by Emily Buehler, page 16):
"What makes good bread is the attention given to the dough, not the recipe. This is especially true for bakers working in distinct climates. A world-famous recipe from a California bakery might need adjustment when used in the humid eastern Carolina summer with a different brand of flour and different water. Bakers make adjustments by paying attention to the dough's characteristics."

Sourdough Peanut Butter Pumpkin Doggie Biscuits


Preheat oven to 350 degrees
In food processor add:
3 cups whole oat flour (can use WW)
1 cup quick oats
2 T olive oil
2 large eggs
1/2 cup canned pumpkin (pure pumpkin no spices!!!)
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup sourdough starter.





Pulse a couple times to mix,
then process for about a minute
until it all comes together.








The dough should be the consistency
of playdough. If not, knead in a little
more flour. Roll out to just under
1/2 inch thick.






Use a doggie cookie cutter
and place biscuits on ungreased
cookie sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes, turn over
and bake an additional 10 min.
depending upon how hard you
want the biscuits.





We used a little 1 inch bone
and a 3 inch german shepherd
dog cookie cutters








Cool on wire rack. Depending
upon size of cookie cutters,
you may get anywhere from 3 to
5 dozen biscuits.







Here is one satisfied pooch!
Gretchen had a couple, and this
is Helga thoroughly enjoying hers.

I pour 1/3 cup of starter straight out of the jar into a glass measuring cup. Add a spoon of oat fiber or resistant starch and some polydextrose instead of sugar. Might take a tsp of water depending upon how thick my starter is at the moment. Some days I feel like adding a dash of garlic powder and parsley. Mix well, add a dash of baking soda and mix again. I already have my skillet and crumpet mold on the stove getting hot. Pour the mix in the mold. When the top has set and has holes, turn over for another minute or two and voila! An individual crumpet. Load on the butter and breakfast is served! Next time I make one I'll post a picture. (note, you can sub flour for the oat fiber or resistant starch, and sub sugar for polydextrose.)

For some fun reading:

1.Baking with a Cloche
   a.more pictures
2.Make your own clay oven

I'll add more sites as I find them!

If you give yourself time enough to gain experience with sourdough or even bread baking in general, you'll come up with your own recipes, tweaks, and techniques. The thing is, most of it has already been done and someone has written about it. I sat and typed this lens all myself, used my many years of experience to gain the info... but so have others before me and after me. We all eventually come up with the same formulas and recipes and no one can take claim to being the first... unless you're several hundred years old. LOL No one can make claim to being the first and owning the info unless they were around with the Pharoahs. Common sense tells us a good cook, a good baker will figure out the best way to make something, so the same recipe may exist all over the world with each cook/baker thinking it is all their own.

I shared my info and experience just to get newbies started on their way. You'll find I didn't do anything special that thousands or millions of others haven't done. Afterall, you can only do so much with flour and water... it doesn't take a genius to figure out quite a great number of people will be coming up with the same formulas.

I'm glad you stopped by my lens, now is the time to get some books and get cooking... or ah.. baking!