How to Use Sourdough Starter in Baking

Once you have a sourdough starter, making bread from it is very easy and extremely inexpensive!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• baking pan, mixing bowl, non-metal stirring spoon, floured surface to kneed bread, flour, vegetable oil or soft butter, sugar, and salt, a towel

1. First you must proof your sponge. This means to make sure your starter is alive and working. Empty the starter into a non-metal bowl. (You might take this chance to rinse out your starter container.)

2. Add 1 cup warm water and 1 cup of flour. Sit and place your sponge in a warm spot to rise for a few hours - 6 to 8 hours is usual, overnight is ok. If the sponge is bubbly or frothy when you come back then it is good to go!

3. Take out about 1 cup of the sponge. Put the rest back into the container, feed it 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water, and refridgerate for next time. Put the 1 cup of sponge you took out back into the mixing bowl and add to it 1 Tbsn vegetable oil or softened butter, 2 tspn sugar, and 1 tspn salt. Mix and kneed in about 1.5 cups of flour, depending on how watery the sponge was you may need more or less flour to achieve a sticky but firm dough.

4. After kneeding, cover dough with a towel and let rise in a warm spot. Sourdough rises more slowly than standard bread dough so give it a few hours.

5. When dough has doubled in size, punch out and lightly kneed again. Shape the dough in whatever shape you want - you can braid the dough or roll it into an oval loaf on a baking tray or place it in a standard dough pan to make a sliced bread shape loaf. Cover with the towel and let it rise to double size again.

6. Bake at about 300 degrees for 30-40 minutes. You want the dough to sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Let it cool for about 1 hour before cutting.

Tips & Warnings

• Try using different flours or a mixture of flours to get new and interesting flavors!
• Try steeping herbs such as rosemary in olive oil for a few days before mixing into your sourdough sponge for interesting flavors!

[anniegfr]

on 7/29/2009 Thanks! You can feed your starter without making bread. About once a week, mix the starter up, and then take half out and discard. Replace with 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water. If you do this every week, the wild yeast colony will be kept alive indefinitely.

[cygnetbrown]

on 7/29/2009 Thanks for the recipe! Now I'll definitely have to try it. Question though, how often do you have to feed the starter to keep it active? (In other words, how often do you have to make bread?)