Continued from Adventures in Sourdough (Part I).

Having successfully produced a sourdough starter that smelled good and seemed to meet minimum bubbling requirements, I was now ready to try my hand at bread. 

This would require finding a recipe with modest ingredient requirements since, under no circumstances, did I want to make a special trip to the grocery store for dried potato flakes.  In the end I selected a very simple recipe figuring that, if nothing else, it would be an easy, inexpensive way to test the starter.  Here is what I used:

• 1 c starter
• 1 c water
• 2+ c all purpose flour 
• 1 t salt

When the author mentioned needed to add a lot of flour during kneading, I should have taken the hint.  This needed a LOT more flour.

I mixed up the ingredients in my Dimension 2000 mixer (like a Bosch) for 5 minutes.  I could already tell there wasn’t enough flour and dumped in an unmeasured extra amount as it processed.  After 5 minutes, I removed the bread and hand-kneaded for about another 5 minutes—and added a lot of additional flour.  Since I am not familiar with raw sourdough I was hesitant to add too much and ended up with a soft pliable dough.

I put the dough in a glass bowl sprayed with Pam, sprayed the top of the dough and covered it with wax paper.  I heated the oven to 100, turned it off, and put in the dough to rise overnight.

Sourdough Bread Ready for the Oven

In the morning, the dough had doubled and still smelled good, so I set out to form my loaf.  Since this dough was still very soft, I was nervous about letting it go freeform on a cookie sheet or stone and I put it in the round glass pan I use for my yeast bread.  I let it rise again for 2 hours.  Note that I floured the pan instead of just greasing it since the dough was on the sticky side.

After 2 hours, it had risen nicely, so I put it in a 450 degree oven sitting over a pan of water.  I baked it for 30 minutes, then removed the bread and let it cool on a wire rack.  Where exposed, the crust was beautiful and nicely chewy.  There was a reasonable rise and a good sour edge to the flavor.  The only real issues were a slightly bland flavor and a bit too much moistness (guess I should have added even more flour).

Sourdough Bread

Next time, I will be adding more flour which I think will help the texture.  I will also try an add-in–probably sun-dried tomatoes and rosemary.  If it hangs together enough, I’ll bake it on a stone, so that more of the crust takes on the chewy delightfulness of the top. 

Sliced Sourdough Loaf

In the meantime, we are happily dipping slices of sourdough experiment #1in an olive oil/balsamic vinegar mix and I am excited for round two.