Sourdough Bread

These gorgeous loaves are from Companion Bakery in Santa Cruz, California.  The make two delicious rye breads: Holy Moly and Annie’s Rye, that I always purchase when we have guests over for the weekend.  They have many tempting treats.  I used to regularly order their blueberry buckwheat gluten-free scones, but now I regularly have their decadent breakfast frittata seasoned with tarragon.  With the delightful options available to me at Companion Bakery, I like many others, wouldn’t have considered baking sourdough bread if it had not been for the pandemic. 

I was taken aback when one of our guy friends asked me to teach him how to bake using a bread machine. I had long ago given away the bread machine we’d received as a gift, but I’d saved all of the tips and tricks articles and recipes and shared them with him.  As a single person, living alone during lockdown was getting to him, so we offered to have him stay with us for a spell.  Shortly after he returned to his apartment in Oakland we randomly received a block of yeast in the mail.  As I came across this block in my pantry regularly, it kept my mind on baking bread.   Shortly afterwards, I met a couple girlfriends at the beach to paint watercolors.  One of my friends brought me her sourdough starter and the recipe from “a couple cooks”  @acouplecooks) that she uses.

On my first attempt, I followed all of the instructions faithfully.   As my sourdough starter grew though, I began making bread regularly eventually making three loaves at a time and giving bread away to neighbors.  I earned that I even if I simplified the steps, I would attain roughly the same results and the individuals I gave my bread too were always delighted with the results. 

• 200 grams  all purpose flour (almost 2 cups)
• 200 grams bread flour (a little over 1 1/2 cups)
• 50 grams of either whole wheat flour or rye flour (1/4 cup)
• 350 grams warm tap water 
• Roughly 50-100 grams active sourdough starter (about 1/2 cup)*
• 10 grams kosher salt (about a teaspoon)
• Rice flour

* make sure to feed the starter the night before making the bread

So, I simply began combining all the ingredients in a bowl in the morning, letting the bowl sit through the day. In the evening before bed, I dust a cutting board with flour, gently shape a rounded ball of dough and place it in a banneton dusted with rice flour then place it covered in the fridge overnight.  Initially, I didn’t have a banneton so I lined my colindar with a thin flour sack dish towel and fold the edges of the dishtowel over the colindar. 

The idea to use rye flour came from reading the Tartine Bread cookbook. 

I would place a sheet of parchment paper in a dutch oven, place the dough on the parchment paper, score the bread then place the Dutch oven into a cold oven set to 450 degrees and the timer to an hour.  The baking time and temperature, I gathered from the little booklet that came with the bread cloche my husband bought me as a gift.  When baking three loaves of bread, I would use both he Dutch oven and the cloche.  I’d reduce the cooking time 10 minutes if the oven was already hot.  

It’s been really fun to play with scoring the loaves.  Initially, I tried to score them with a knife, but the knife didn’t make clean cuts in the dough so I purchased a bread score.  My niece sent me photos of some of the beautiful designs she’s made with her bread.  Seeing what is possible,  I am looking forward to trying more elaborate  designs.

Unfortunately, we were evacuated during the CZU lightening complex fires and my sourdough starter was thrown out with everything else in my refrigerator that had gone bad while the electricity was out.  I was overjoyed when one of our friends shared with me that she had some starter she could share with me.   I was surprised to learn that I only need a tablespoon or so of her starter.  She shared with me her tips from sourdoughhome.com for reviving her starter:

1. Add 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour
2. 10-12 hours later, add another 50 grams of flour and 50 grams flour
3. 10=12 hours later, remove 100 gram of starter and add 50 grams of water and 50 grams of flour again. 
4. repeat step #3 using removed starter to make bread

It’s been fun to learn of new ways to use the sourdough starter discard.  One of my favorite recipes is this thin cracker.

I’m excited to finally get a chance to make my Aunt Francis’s Sour Dough Pancake Recipe:

Place sourdough starter in a bowl the night before.  Add 2 cups tepid water and 2 cups flour.  Mix together, cover, leave overnight.  Next morning take out 1 cup of starter, place in a jar and refrigerate.  Add 2 or 3 tablespoons of sugar to batter, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons oil.

Most recently, I have been experimenting with the bread flour from Mile High Mill grown and milled in Susanville, California.