A few months ago I posted about our everyday sourdough bread. It is a very simple recipe that requires only minutes of hands on time. Without a heavy duty mixer and with a toddler the less hands on the better. With the simple recipe and process for that bread I often enlist the help of my teen daughters in preparing the bread. One day the recipe was changed slightly by accident and turned out to be something we like even better. The original recipe calls for 4 cups of sourdough starter. I’ll admit that on occasion it would be bread making time and I would have forgot to feed up my starter to the needed 4 cups which would sometimes result in not being able to make sourdough bread that day. This version only needs 2 cups of starter. It does make fewer loaves (3 instead of 4) but also uses slightly less flour. The resulting bread has a very mild sourdough flavor and makes 3 fluffy loaves of sandwich style bread.
Sourdough Sandwich Bread
2 cups starter
3 1/2 cups buttermilk, kefir or combination of the two
1 1/2 Tablespoons Sea Salt
1/3 cup Sucanat or other natural sweetener (honey is terrific)
3 Tablespoons melted butter
8 cups whole wheat flour
In a large bowl mix starter and buttermilk (feed your starter per directions for your particular starter). Add salt, sweetener and butter. Mix well. Add flour 2 cups at a time. I usually end up mixing with my freshly washed hands around cup six. Once all the flour is in give the dough a quick knead (just work it for a minute or two), the dough will be quite sticky. Butter the top of the dough, flip it over and butter the other side. Cover with a cloth. Let set in a warm spot for 12-15 hours, it should rise quite a bit during this time.
Prepare three loaf pans by buttering generously. Punch down dough and divide into thirds. Take one piece at a time and work it in your hands. Push the bread into one of your buttered bread pans. Once you have squished the dough into the pan, flip it over (this will butter the dough). Repeat with each piece of dough. Cover your pans with a cloth and return to your warm spot allowing the bread a second rise. This could take 6-12 hours depending on your starter and the warmth in your home. Sometimes on cold Wyoming days I put the oven on warm and when it has preheated I turn it off and put the bread in there to rise. This works pretty good for me as long as I’m careful when removing the bread from the oven before baking and don’t deflate it or don’t forget that I put it in there and accidentally turn the oven on to make something else- not a good thing.
To Bake: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Let bread bake at 425 for 15 minutes then turn down to 325. Continue baking for 35-45 minutes until the bread is done (if you turn the bread out and thump the bottom it should sound hollow when fully baked).
If you would like to see pictures of what the dough should look like click here for the original recipe. Why sourdough? Kimi, The Nourishing Gourmet gives some great reasons here as does Wardeh from Gnowfglins here.
Do you have a favorite way to use your sourdough starter?
This post is a contribution to Real Food Wednesday hosted this week by Kelly the Kitchen Kop
>Hi Millie,
I'm not having any success opening the sourdough pizza crust link. It links to a Godaddy page.
Theresa
>Sorry about that Theresa.
The blog that it was linked to is no longer. I put the recipe up on my blog the other day but forgot to correct this link. It should work for you now.
>Hi Millie, I wondered if you're still happy with this variation of your bread? Also, have you ever tried it w/ water instead of kefir? I'm thinking that it would be less sour that way… We are finishing up a brief stint on the GAPS diet and it's time to try sourdough bread again, so am getting ready to try your recipe soon!
>Susanna,
We do like it and have a double batch going right now. I am experimenting with doing half kefir or buttermilk and half water (more to save money than anything). I tried it that way last batch and it was good but didn't raise as much as usual. Our weather is a little warmer now so maybe that will help. I'll know tomorrow.
For a less sour bread you could try using more starter and less fermenting time. The extra starter should cause it to rise faster in a shorter time and result in a less sour bread. I haven't tried that but found that info at sourdoughhome.com
It does kind of make sense.
Also, I use honey as my sweetener sometimes and it is delicious!
>Thanks for the reply! I think i'll try half kefir/half water and see how it goes. I made your sourdough pitas tonight and they were really easy and tasty!
>I'm glad you liked the pitas. They are something fun and different that we enjoy.
I 'stole' some of the bread dough out to turn into dinner rolls for tonight. They rose very well doing the half kefir/half water (they only set about 8 hours instead of my usual 20+). I'm also going to use some of the dough for Empanada's for Joe's lunch. I think it will work out well too. It looks very 'fluffy' at the moment.