Category: Adventures of Dashaina

I was on the hunt for a sourdough sandwich bread that my kids would eat AND I could do practically all of it in my gazillion dollar bread maker.  I found this FANTASTIC recipe over at The Fresh Loaf.  After making it EXACTLY as TX farmer notes,  in her sandwich loaf recipe mentioned above, and it turning out SUPER,  I decided to tweak it to suit my lazy need to not measure things by weight unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. Here is the outcome of my “2 additional loaves made  already ” adventure.  
Ingredients 
Starter Dough

26g fed Sourdough Starter

44 g Whole Milk Milk

82g  AP Flour

Let sit at around 72 deg overnight (12 hours) 

Final Dough 

(in this order in the bread maker, or whatever order your bread maker calls for) 

1 Starter Dough portion (this is the yeast) 

4 1/4 cups Flour (AP or 1 cup WW for 1 cup AP) 

1 Tbs Sugar

2.5 Tbs Butter

2 tsp Salt

In a 2 cup Measuring Cup add the following:

2 whole eggs

fill up to 1.5 cup line with Whole Milk 

Directions 

Using a bread maker, select a 20 min dough cycle or stop the mixing at 20 minutes 

or use a mixer with dough hooks… 

or use your hands. 

I’m all about equal opportunity baking.  

Now remove a portion equivalent to the amount of starter dough you added (roughly 1 cup). Set that aside.  Take the main dough and form a ball, place into cover bowl and let sit at room temperature for 2 hours.  Place container in fridge overnight (12 hours). 

In the meantime for the extra dough you set aside:

Roll your remaining dough into a thick even log and slice into 6 even pieces. Roll into balls and place on pan or in large 6 count muffin tin.  Cover and let rise for 6 hours or until each ball has almost doubled in size. (fills the muffin cup).  Bake at 350 for 15-20 min until golden brown. 

Serve warm or store for later snack time. 

Once the 12 hours has passed:

Remove main dough from fridge.  You may divide it into two portions for baking ( 2 standard loaf pans or making 2 largish pizza crusts) or if baking in the bread maker don’t divide it (round it to fit nicely in the bread machine pan). 

For bread loaf(ves) (not pizza crust) 
Put main dough (whole) into pan,  cover and set aside for 6-8 hours until it has reached the top of the pan edge… maybe a tad bit higher if you are so inclined. I bake it at the pan edge measurement.

Bread Machine Baking:

When appropriate height is reached, using bake only function, select 45 minutes and press start. When finished remove and let cool on rack for an hour or 3.

Oven baking:

Place shaped loafs into pans and bake in a preheated oven (350 degrees) for 45 minutes until tops are what ever shade of brown you desire. Approximately 45 minutes give or take.
Pizza crust:

Take one half or the main dough and roll out to desired shape and thickness. 

Let rest for about 1-3 hours….basically we’re going for slightly puffy.  

Punch it down if it gets out of hand. 

Sourdough is slow and forgiving… 

…  in my experience. 

Which is why you’re reading this right?? 

Moving… on. 

Top with whatever you enjoy on your pizza and bake it!  

You may bake it in a preheated oven (350 degrees) or  in a wood burning pizza oven or over a campfire on a flat stone… I won’t judge. 

Cook it until it looks golden brown around the edges (for 20 minutes or so) … you may find it desirable to use a pizza stone or to put cornmeal on the bottom for extra fanciness. 

I don’t…  but you might.. and that’s why we’re called INDIVIDUALS. 😂

Whatever you do,  enjoy gobbling it up at the very least!

You’re welcome. 

Some of you may know how much I just love baking bread.. and cake… cookies… heck cooking food in general seems to have become quite a passion for me. I just love feeding people good food! I don’t mean something all fancy and expensive… I mean delicious good for you food. It therefore came as no surprise that fermentation would eventually find it’s way back into my heart. I’ve made a few things via fermentation in my life.. all with good outcomes and tasty results. I just never really stuck with it until my good friend SM sent me her yogurt maker last year.. and I’ve never looked back. I couldn’t imagine not being able to make such a basic easy food for my family and I don’t have to nowadays!

Today I’m going to tell you about one of my latest fermentation creations.. my sourdough starter! I just love her bubbly yeasty form sitting so happily in a bowl in my fridge. Honestly I thought there would be some complicated trick to making a starter.

I’m here to tell you.. there isn’t!

It is so dang easy.

All you need is a little time, a little flour, a little water and a warm place to get it started. Instead of recreating the wheel of tutorials, I’m going to send you over to one of my favourite blogs,  The Kitchn. Here you can find a wonderful and easy to follow tutorial on making your own sourdough starter. Emma explains the how’s and why’s of making sourdough. It has beautiful photos of each step and an excellent running commentary at the end with lots of Q&A!
Here’s a little video of my starter waking up from a nap in the fridge for a few days.

So if you’ve been waiting for an excuse to use the basic chemistry you learned in school, here’s as good a reason as any. Make a living culture right in your kitchen in a few days! It is a rewarding experience and the kids will really enjoy watching the sourdough starter in action!

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