50 Before 50 #5- Sourdough everything!

January 9, 2024

I might be the only person who did not jump on the sourdough bread bandwagon during COVID. Something about working, keeping two kids busy and trying not to lose my sanity. Or maybe I was busy building Legos.... ANYWAY- I missed the whole sourdough arc back then, so I figured I would give it a go for 50 Before 50.

Spoiler alert- I made a a lot of mistakes again! For anyone who knew my grandma, Tina Cotter, you will appreciate this. Most of my mistakes came from not reading the directions!

Mistake #1- My friend Ruth gave me some discard from her sourdough starter so I could make my own. She very thoughtfully gave me all the directions, videos and helpful advice I needed to nurture my starter and get going on my sourdough baking journey. However- I got busy and forgot about it! By the time I remembered, it resembled a middle school science project- and I didn't even want to open the lid for fear of what smell might be lurking beneath. I'm sorry Ruth!!!

Brian came to the rescue- again :) He ordered me another sourdough starter and crock from King Arthur as a Christmas gift. Luckily, I had plenty of time over the holidays to dig in and get the sourdough starter chugging along.

It took 3-4 feeding cycles, but finally the starter was growing nicely! A byproduct of sourdough baking is something called discard- it is dough that you are no longer going to feed. I didn't appreciate how much discard there can be from sourdough baking, and there are hundreds of recipes for using this discard in creative ways. The first way I used my discard was to make sourdough waffles. They were delicious!

Mistake #2- It was finally time for me to make bread! I had all the ingredients and I was ready to go. I measured out the starter, added the water, yeast, salt and flour. I started kneading the dough, but something was off. In re-reading the directions again, I bought the wrong kind of yeast. [Groan]. Totally something grandma would have done. Except she would have still baked the bread! I threw it out and went to buy the right yeast.

Mistake #3- The next day- after I grew my starter back up again- I was back at it. Everything was looking good- mixed the ingredients, kneaded the dough, let it rise for 90 mins. It was glorious! I was ready to divide it into two loaves and put it in the oven, But wait! There was another step that I totally skipped over in the 20 times I had previously read the recipe. After I divided the dough into 2 loaves, it needed to be covered and rise AGAIN for another hour.... Shoot! I didn't have another hour- Joey and I were leaving to go to Chicago. Brian to the rescue AGAIN. I got the bread in the oven before we left, and Brian pulled it out for me. He sent me the photo above of my first 2 loaves. Ahhhh- so happy. We had avocado toast for days to enjoy the fresh bread- it was amazing!!

After the eventual success above, I have continued to bake more bread and hone my new skill. Happy to say that I baked six (yes- 6!) loaves of bread today when we were home with the snow. I also made another recipe with the discard on Sunday- sourdough pancakes. They were better than the waffles! I have a bunch of discard in the fridge- thinking that will be sourdough pizza crust this weekend. And my starter is safe and sound in the fridge- with a calendar reminder for me to feed it this time so I can enjoy more sourdough baking in the months (years?) ahead.