Homemade Sourdough Bread

A couple of years ago I got it into my head that I wanted to conquer my longstanding intimidation with baking that called for yeast.  For no good reason, and for years I had stayed away from baking anything that called for yeast and rising time and punching down and second rising times and all that jazz.  One day I decided that "gosh darn it, I'm a reasonably confident baker and I can do this" and even though I wasn't eating wheat/gluten/yeast at the time, there is still something wonderfully domestic about the idea of baking bread.

I pulled out a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and started with their basic recipe.  And I completely fell in love!  Even though I couldn't eat it, I still fell in love with bread baking and went on to try out lots of different recipes from that book.  With that easy introduction, I've since conquered my fears of yeast and regular bread baking and had lots of fun with dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, pizza dough and the like.

After Jeff and I got married a year ago, I started making a 1/2 batch of Five Minutes A Day base recipe about once a week.  It hangs out in the fridge and most often becomes pizza dough, but sometimes I just make a loaf or sandwich rolls.  Its wonderful, Jeff likes it, I like it, its fast and convenient and if you let it hang out on the counter for about 8 hours rather than the instructed 2, you get this lovely almost-sourdough flavor.

So you'd think I could leave well-enough alone.  But I can't!  Even when a recipe is awesome, I always get this itch that I could maybe do it just a little bit better.  So a few weeks ago, I started research methods for real homemade sourdough bread.  And I started playing around with my starter and trying to collect wild, airborne yeast and such.  My first loaf was so-so.  Flavor was pretty good but it was dense and heavy and the texture wasn't right.  After some tips from my friend Tarah, I cut back on the flour and let it rise overnight and this was the result of my 2nd attempt:

Even Jeff asked me if it was supposed to be that flat.  "Nope," I said.  "Its not supposed to be that flat".  The problem might have been that I was going for a free-form loaf and did not use a bread pan.  Reducing the flour made it very loose and I couldn't get the dough to hold its shape.  But here's the funny thing.  

See all those little holes?

Those holes are exactly right.  The bread, despite being very flat, had the exact texture and delicious "sourdough" flavor that I was going for.  It just didn't rise the way I wanted.  So...  I did this with it:

I enjoyed a lovely little breakfast sandwich and cut the rest into sandwich-sized squares, wrapped them up and popped them in the freezer for another time.

After a lot of hassling with this, I've decided that for me, the easier method is worth sticking to. I think it is just a good, its more versatile and its well, easier! 

If you have any interest in trying it out, HERE is my old blog post with a short video showing you how simple it can be to make your own bread.  And if you like sourdough kinds of flavor in your bread, just let it sit on the counter for about 8-10 hours before you refrigerate it.  And if you want to keep that nice flavor, leave about a cup of the old dough in the tub when you mix up a new batch.  The wild yeast that has collected will give the good flavor to your new batch.

And that's all for tonight!

A Gluten-Free Baby Shower

I have a Penzey's Spice Shop magnet on my fridge that says "Love People. Cook Them Tasty Food."  And  I had the absolute fun of getting to do that by making the food for a baby shower for one of my dearest friends yesterday.  Stacey and I have been friends for about 8 years and it has been a delight to share different seasons of life together.  She is expecting her first baby later this month and I'm pretty darn excited about his arrival!

I've been planning what I want to make for over a month and to be honest, I don't totally understand why this is so much fun for me!  One of the extra challenges in this shower was that the new Mommy-To-Be eats gluten-free.  I spent a lot of years eating gluten-free myself, so I was pretty sure I could work within those constraints.  So here is what I came up with:

Mocha Icebox Cake - This was a special request from Stacey and I knew I could make the cookies gluten-free pretty easily.  I followed the recipe from my blog from a few weeks ago.  And I used the link to the Tate's Chocolate Chip cookies, but used a good gluten-free flour blend (Pamela's) in place of regular flour.  Turned out really delicious!

Gluten-Free Lemon Poppyseed Scones - I used the same Pamela's brand Gluten-Free flour for these.  I thought the baking powder taste was a little strong, but otherwise, really good!

Caprese Tomato Bites - Saw this idea on Pinterest and they were wonderful!  Just 1/2 of a cherry tomato, a snipet of fresh basil and fresh mozzarella "pearls" with a little grind of fresh pepper and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, held together with a toothpick.

Spinach, Mushroom & Feta Crustless Quiche - This calls for 3 different kinds of cheese!  Need I say more?

Frozen-Yogurt Covered Fruit Pops - These were a little messier to make than I anticipated.  And I think my chunks of fruit were a bit too large, making them a little hard to eat while frozen.  But the concept was really good and I would make them again, but cut the fruit into smaller pieces.  I did strawberries, bananas, pineapple and raspberries.  For toppings I did chocolate chunks, toasted pecans & toasted coconut flakes.

Candied Bacon -  DELICIOUS!  As if bacon were not unhealthy enough by itself, add some sugar to the mix and you get this wonderful, smoky, salty, sweet, maple-y, peppery stick of goodness!   If you Google "Candied Bacon" there are a bunch of different ways people make it and I combined a few.  I basically brushed the bacon with maple syrup, dredged it through some brown sugar and then did a few grinds of fresh, cracked pepper over the top and baked it on a rack set over a foil-lined baking sheet for about 30 minutes @ 350 F.

And there you have it!