Sourdough Bread for Beginners

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I love bread.  I especially love homemade bread.  I've been doing the rustic no-knead bread for many years and love the simplicity.  Turns out sourdough isn't hard--it just takes good time management (and an active starter).  

Equipment you need

Large mixing bowl (I use a metal or a plastic bowl)

Wooden spoon

Kitchen scale

Cooking pot with lid -between 4-6 quart size (cast iron dutch oven is ideal)

Parchment paper

Ingredients

90 grams (1/3 C) of starter at the peak of activity (info below)

385 grams ( 1 7/8 C) of water

10 grams (1 3/4 tsp) of kosher salt 

520 grams (4 C) of bread flour 

Timing (start one day, finish the next)

3:00-4:00 pm feed your starter

8:00-9:00 pm mix your dough

Overnight-let dough rest on counter

Morning (8:00-10:00 am)-Shape and let rest for about 30-60 minutes

Late morning bake your bread

1. Prep your starter.  Feed your starter the afternoon before you want to bake.  My starter is very active and will go from unfed to peak activity (increased in volume nearly 3x) in about 4 hours in my kitchen--could take longer or less time in your kitchen.  

2.  Use your kitchen scale and use the tare feature (the zero-out feature) so that every time you add an item you can start the gram count over.  Don't forget to zero out the first time when you put the large mixing bowl on it. Add the 90 g of starter, zero out scale.  Add the 385 g water, zero out the scale.  Add the 10 g salt and stir it gently to dissolve salt and starter. 

3. Zero out the scale and add the 520 g of flour.  Remove from the scale and use the wooden spoon to stir everything together until it is all mixed and shaggy (takes about 1-2 minutes).  Dough will not have any dry flour, but it won't be a pretty ball either. 

4.  Set the timer for 15 minutes and cover the bowl.  When the timer goes off, you will do a "mini knead" called the stretch and fold.  This will help develop the dough's gluten and start making the dough look like dough!  Get your fingers a bit wet to keep them from sticking and grab one edge of the dough and pull it up 3-4 inches and then fold it down to the center of the dough.  Turn the bowl a 1/4 turn and do it again until you've gone around the bowl a couple times.  Set the timer for another 15 minutes and then do it again. You'll notice a pretty dramatic difference in the dough over the 2 stretch and folds.  

5.  Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel (my bowl has a lid, perfect!) and leave it on the counter over night.  You want the dough to nearly double in size--in my kitchen that takes about 10 hours.  

6.  Morning!  Time to get the bread ready for baking.  Your dough needs one last set of stretch and folds, but this time, you'll stretch it a lot more.  Get your fingers wet and use a hand on each side of the dough to slide underneath the ball and pull it up and out of the bowl about 12-18 inches.  Let the dough start to just hang down and stretch as far is it will go.  Pile the dough back onto itself into the bowl, turn the bowl a 1/4 turn and do it again (you'll notice it won't want to stretch/dangle quite as far, but keep gently shaking/jiggling to get the dough to stretch out more).  Repeat 2 more times.

7. Prep a medium bowl to hold the shaped loaf while it rests (proofs) before baking.  Put a piece of parchment into the bowl and sprinkle with flour. 

8. Shape the dough--after you've done the stretches, pick it up the same way and tuck the ends under to start making a ball with a smooth top.  Grab a small handful of flour and rub it over the smooth, round top.  Carefully turn it and put some flour on the bottom too.   Now place the dough round into your parchment lined bowl with the bottom of the dough on the bottom of the bowl so that you see the pretty, smooth top.  Note:  If you want to get fancy and have a banneton, you put the dough in upside down--but don't do a banneton your first time.  My banneton took about 2 times to get "seasoned" and not end up with dough sticking to the basket).  

9.  Let the bowl with the shaped dough rest in the fridge for about 45 minutes while the oven preheats (NOTE: If you need to let the dough hang out in the fridge for longer than 45 minutes, no problem...leave it in the banneton all day if you need to and bake when you have time). 

10. Preheat oven to 475 degrees for a full 30-45 minutes.  

11. Take your dough from the fridge and carefully grab the parchment and place the whole thing, parchment and all, into your baking pot.  Slash a relief cut across the dough (use a very sharp knife or a fancy razor called a lame).  Put the lid on and place in the oven (I like to set my pot on a cookie sheet to make sure the bottom doesn't get too browned).  Bake covered for 30 minutes. 

12. Remove the cover on the pot and bake an additional 20-25 minutes until it is very golden and the internal temp is between 202-206 degrees on an instant read thermometer.

Place bread on a rack to cool for about an hour before cutting. 

Alternate:  Baguettes

You can use the same dough and shape it into baguettes!  After step 6 where you do the last stretch and folds, instead of forming one ball to rest, divide the dough into 2 or 3 pieces and lightly flour your counter.  Form a rectangle and roll it up to make the tube. Pinch the seam closed and roll the dough to get a longer loaf.  Its best if you have a baguette pan so that the bread will hold its shape.  Let the baguettes rest on the counter until doubled in size (about 2 hours).  Preheat your oven, but put a pan on the bottom rack with a couple cups of water in it.  The pan of water will provide the steam to get the crusty exterior (with the round loaf you don't do this because the lid on the pot keeps moisture inside and is self-steaming).  My oven happens to have a steam mode, so if yours does, use it!  Bake at 450 for about 30 minutes until nicely golden.

Strawberry Strawberry Cupcakes

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Raise your hand if you've ever planned a trip around a cupcake shop visit?  Silos Bakery? Check.  Georgetown Cupcake? Check.  Magnolia? Sprinkles?  Check, Check.  I like cupcakes.  I've searched for lots of copy-cat recipes to all those famous shops and none have met my expectations (too lightweight, too dry, too heavy...just not right).  So I went with a default trick of doctoring up a cake mix for my cupcakes.  The real star of this show is the strawberry flavor--and it comes from freeze-dried strawberries.  Since I'm home like everyone else in the world trying to avoid the coronavirus, I went wandering through my food storage and brought up the can of freeze dried berries.   They are PERFECT for cupcakes.  You get tons of strawberry flavor and you don't need any artificial flavoring!  You can buy them in smaller packages at Trader Joes--maybe even regular grocery stores.

Cupcakes
1 Duncan Hines white cake mix
1 C. milk
3 large egg whites
1/3 C. vegetable oil
1/4 C. crushed/powdered freeze dried strawberries (not fresh berries)
1/2 C sour cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and get 24 cupcake liners ready.  Pulverize  about 1 cup of the freeze dried strawberries in a zipper bag  with a rolling pin (you'll get enough for cake and frosting).  Mix up the batter by following the directions on the box, but sub out the water with whole milk.  Add the sour cream and the strawberry powder.  Mix just enough to get it all mixed together with no streaks of white remaining.  Divide the batter into 24 cupcakes (I think I got 22).  The box said to bake for 18-22 minutes BUT I went with 16 and it was just right.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 C butter, room temp
1/2 C cream cheese, room temp (4 oz, which is half a brick)
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp coconut extract
1/8 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 Tbs freeze dried strawberry powder
3 C. Powdered sugar
1-2 Tbs milk

Use paddle attachment on the stand mixer and cream the butter and cream cheese together.  Add the extracts and strawberry powder.  Alternate adding the powdered sugar and milk (on low) and mix on low until all combined.  Switch to the whisk attachment and whip on medium-high for 3-4 minutes to get all fluffy and light pink.

When cupcakes are completely cool, pipe frosting onto your cupcakes (I found that I actually preferred the ratio of frosting when I used the smaller tip than my jumbo star tip).  You can freeze these completely frosted if you want (I tested that out for you...an entire cupcake, with its pretty frosting will defrost in about 15 minutes and taste delicious). 


Freeze dried strawberries are the trick.  You can't use fresh strawberries because everything will be too wet and diluted.  The freeze drying concentrates the flavor.  Game changer!  

Fresh Peach Pie

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Peach season has been abundant around here.  I have some very awesome neighbors who shared their bounty with me.  One neighbor invited me to pick peaches with her, another left a bag of peaches on the front porch and yet another sets a box out at the end of the driveway for anyone who needs a few.  I've made topping for waffles, I froze peach pie filling, I made fruit leather, I froze some for smoothies--but I also made a fresh peach pie.  Oh, this is a treat for sure!

Makes a 10" pie
7 C. sliced fresh peaches, divided (probably about 10 big peaches)
1 C. sugar
5 T. cornstarch (I might use 6 T next time)
1 T. lemon juice
1 T. butter
1 10" baked pie crust


When you make fresh peach pie you mix the raw peaches with a glaze.  I don't care for the pre-made peach sauce that you buy in plastic tubs in the produce section.  I thought I liked the box of powdered peach pie filling mix--until I made my own.  Yeah, you have to ditch the box. It won't take much extra time.

First, bake a pie crust and let it cool on the counter. You can do it any way you like, buy a frozen one, refrigerated dough or make your own.  Next, peel your peaches (I use the quick blanching method to get the skins to slip off rather than try to do it with a paring knife) and get them sliced up and in a big bowl.



You will need to put the juice that has accumulated at the bottom of your bowl as well as 1 cup of the peaches into a blender.  You should have about 1 1/2 cups of puree (add water if needed, or wait a few minutes and get a bit more juice from the peaches still in the bowl).  Add the sugar and  cornstarch and blend til smooth.




Pour the mixture into a saucepan and heat on medium until it comes to a boil. Boil for 1 minute, remove from heat and add butter and lemon juice.  Pour the hot mixture over your sliced peaches.  Gently mix with a spatula then pour into the crust.

Put the pie in the fridge for at least 4 hours and serve with whipped cream. 

Blueberry Sour Cream Custard Pie with Olive Oil Crust

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 For my birthday this year, I had a delicious dinner at a fun restaurant called The DoDo.  They have very tasty food options, but they are well known for their great dessert menu.  I chose to be particularly indulgent that night (hey, it was my birthday!) and got the Sour Cream Blueberry pie. I was expecting something like a lemon meringue with a blueberry topping, but it was completely different...and really, really good!  Instead, it was somewhere between a blueberry pie and a cheesecake, all mixed together with a nut topping.

Some searching around the internet showed something that resembled it called a blueberry custard pie--so I thought I'd give it a shot to see if it was like the dessert in my memory.  I'm happy to say that this version is a pretty good facsimile!  Its not hard to make--not fussy or temperamental, and the ingredients are not exotic either.  You do want to give yourself about 20 minutes of hands on time, 40 minutes for baking and at least 2 hours to refrigerate before serving (try making it before bed and it will be ready for the next day).

I love pie--but I'm really lousy at pie crust.  I usually buy it ready made.  At a large Sunday dinner at my friend's home a few weeks ago, pie was served with a flaky, delicious crust.  I asked the baker what the secret was and she said the crust was "no fail" and the secret ingredient was olive oil.  Yup, olive oil.  I had never heard of such a thing.  She also didn't roll out the dough, instead, she pressed it straight into the pie pan.  Hmmm, intriguing.  Well, I have to say, success!  I tried it today and it was very tender and delicious (and the olive oil flavor was extremely mild and not noticeable when combined with the filling).  I altered Sherry's crust recipe (partly because I didn't write it down completely when I talked with her, and because I thought adding sugar sounded like it would make more of a cookie style crust).

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Pie Crust
1 1/2 C. all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 T. sugar
1/2 C. olive oil (frozen for about 30 minutes)
2 T. cold water (can sub milk if desired)

In a food processor add the dry ingredients and pulse to mix.  Now scoop in the cold olive oil (it becomes a thick liquid when partially frozen) and water.  Pulse until you have combined the ingredients and it looks like a wet sand.  Pour the mixture into the pie pan and press up the sides and the base (I used a 9" pie pan, so I had more dough than I needed).  Pop the crust into the freezer for about 15 minutes while you make the filling.




Filling
3/4 C. sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. salt
2 T. all purpose flour
1 C. sour cream
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 C. blueberries (fresh or frozen)


In the KitchenAid, mix the egg, sugar and salt.  Add the flour and then the sour cream and vanilla.  Mix for about 2-3 minutes until its all incorporated.  Add the blueberries and stir by hand.  Pour the mixture into the pie pan.  Bake for 25 minutes, then add the topping, then bake an additional 10-15 minutes.



Topping
4 T. pecans
3 T. flour
3 T. sugar
2 T. cold butter

Put all the ingredients in the food processor and pulse until the nuts are chopped and the flour/sugar/butter are combined (looks like sand with pebbles of pecans).


This dessert lasted about 5 minutes at dinner--and got great reviews.  Its particularly good chilled and served with whipped cream.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Ah-Mazing Cream Cheese Frosting

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Scrolling through blogs one night, I ran across a very pretty post about pumpkin cinnamon rolls.  To be perfectly honest, I don't usually gush over pumpkin recipes this time of year (now apple recipes, that is a whole 'nother ball game for me)--but this one looked pretty darn tasty.



I tweaked the recipe a bit, hoping to use the 1-hour bread recipe that my sister-in-law gave me.  It did take me more than an hour, but  the finished rolls were coming out of the oven in under 2 hours.  The rolls are very good, but its the frosting that turned out surprisingly wonderful.  The original recipe called for maple extract, but I didn't have any, so I substituted Vanilla Butter and Nut (from my Smith's grocery)--and WOW, best frosting ever.  Even if you don't make the rolls, try the frosting!


In the KitchenAid bowl:
1/3 c. melted butter
1/2 c. warm water
1/2 c. scalded milk (heat milk on medium until bubbles start to form around the edges, but not boiled)
1 c. pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
2 1/2 tsp. instant yeast (the instant type is important, because you do NOT proof this type of yeast in water and you only have to rise the dough once)
1 T. dough enhancer or lecithin (I buy powdered dough enhancer at my WalMart)
4-5 cups of flour (I used 4).

Filling:
1/4 c. brown sugar
1-2 tsp. cinnamon
4 Tbs. butter, softened


Mix all the wet ingredients in the bowl.  In a separate bowl mix all the dry ingredients.  Add the dry ingredients 1 cup at a time until you get a ball of dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl cleanly.  Let it mix for 5 minutes.



Spray your counter with non-stick cooking spray and dump out your dough.  Because I used instant yeast, you only have to do one rise, instead of the usual two.  So you can immediately roll dough out to a 9x15 rectangle.  Spread the dough with butter, sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.



Roll the dough up along the long edge.  I use dental floss to cut the dough, but a serrated knife would work too.  Place the rolls into a greased baking dish (I wish I'd cut mine 1" instead of 1 1/2" and gotten 15 instead of 12 rolls). Let rise for 30-45 minutes or until double in size.



 

 

Bake for about 30 minutes at 350.  Frost with the Ah-Mazing cream cheese frosting.

 

Ah-MAZING Frosting
4 oz cream cheese
1/4 C. butter
1 1/2 C. Powdered sugar
1 T. milk
1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla butter nut extract-this is the secret ingredient
1/4 tsp. salt


Whip it all together in the KitchenAid for about 3 minutes on high.

Monkey Bread...and the Dutch Oven

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I decided to merge two of my latest projects together...the one-hour bread recipe and dutch oven cooking.  This one turned out great--of course, its hard to go wrong when butter and brown sugar are involved.

You'll need
10-inch dutch oven
24-30 briquettes
1 recipe of bread dough, here
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 Tbs. cinnamon
3/4 c. butter, melted

Get the dough made (or cheat and buy a can of biscuits or frozen roll dough...but the dough took me 5 minutes to mix up-which I did in my kitchen before we headed up to the campground).  Divide the dough into 4 pieces and roll each piece into a rope about 1" in diameter.  Cut the rope into 1" pieces.  Toss the pieces into a zipper bag with the sugar and cinnamon.

I lined the dutch oven with foil and sprayed with Pam.  Toss in the 1/2 coated dough pieces--no rhyme or reason, just toss them in.  Pour 1/2 the melted butter over the dough, then put in the rest of the dough and butter.  Let rise for about 30 minutes.  While the dough is raising, get the briquettes lit so they will be hot and ready to go.

Put on the lid and place the dutch oven on top of 12-14 hot coals and put 12-14 coals on top of the lid.  Every 5 minutes, turn the pot about 1/4 turn.  I baked mine for about 30 minutes.  Immediately dump the baked bread onto a plate (or big piece of foil like I did, since we were at a campground and I didn't have all my kitchen with me).

Tasty stuff. Wish I had brought along a tub of frosting or some milk, but that didn't stop us from eating it.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Marshmallow Cream Cheese Frosting

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Each year for my birthday, this is the cake I wait for.  It is a deliciously dense and moist white cake, with lots of frosting, served with whip cream and fresh berries.  When I asked my friend Georgia for the recipe, she just says "oh, I don't know, I just add stuff til its right." Uh huh.  I need to follow her around with the video camera!

So, this is my version of the cake-not quite as dense as Georgia's but still pretty darn tasty.  Usually, it gets made as a bundt cake, but I don't have a bundt pan (I know, you are wondering how I could be missing this important tool...me too).  So, I did cupcakes instead.  Faster, and easy to share.

Cake:
1 white cake mix
1 C. water
1/2 C. oil
3 whole eggs
3/4 C. sour cream

Mix it up and bake for about 20 minutes for cupcakes (about 45 for a bundt...check the cake mix box).  The top of the cake should spring back, or a toothpick should come out pretty clean.

Frosting:
1 stick (1/2 C.) real butter, softened but not too soft
1/2 pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/2  jar marshmallow cream
3 C. powdered sugar
1-2 Tbs. milk

Beat the butter, cream cheese, marshmallow and powdered sugar in the KitchenAid with the paddle mixer (start on low so you don't get powdered sugar all over the kitchen).  Add 1 Tbs of milk and whip.  Add more milk if you think the frosting is still too thick.

Once the cake has cooled, frost, then serve with whip cream (or ice cream) and fresh berries (although a mix of those frozen berries from Costco is a good substitute).

Quick Pecan Sticky Buns

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I do like baking, especially yeast breads since they just make your house smell divine and they taste so good.  The downside is that it can take a while.  My sister-in-law has a recipe for bread that takes one hour from start to finish, but I hadn't tried it out--so today seemed like a good day to change that.

Some quick internet searching turned up the same recipe over and over with slight variations. My sis-in-law uses the version with liquid soy lecithin, but I don't have any of that on hand--but I do have  a container of "dough enhancer" which contains lecithin, so I figured I'd just experiment and just add it (none of the recipes I saw did that, but hey, I like experiments).

Ingredients
 5 1/2 c. bread flour
2-4 Tbs sugar (I used 4 since I'm making sweet rolls)
1 1/2 Tbs. (heaping) SAF instant yeast
1 Tbs. dough enhancer (opt.)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3 Tbs. oil
2 C. hot water
Non-stick spray

Filling
butter, softened
brown sugar
cinnamon

Topping
1/2 C. butter melted
1/2 C. brown sugar
1 C. pecans, rough chopped

Put all the dry ingredients in your mixer, yes, all of them including the dry yeast (I used my KitchenAid on this one and it was fine, but if you double the recipe, you'll need a Bosch).  Now add the water and oil and mix for a minute.  After 1 minute it should be all incorporated and look pretty sticky, if not, add a bit more water.  Now mix for 5 minutes in your mixer (or if you are doing it by hand, wow, you are stronger than me).

While its mixing up, I put everything away (including the flour! you don't need it again) and made sure the countertop was clean and dry.  Spray the counter with non-stick spray and dump the sticky dough on it (get your hands sprayed too).  Knead the dough for just a minute to get it in a nice ball.

I divided the dough in half and placed one half in a zipper bag (sprayed with non-stick spray) to save for later this week when I try scones.

The remaining dough I rolled out on the counter into about a 12x16 inch rectangle.   Spread with butter and then sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.  Roll the dough into a long log.  I use dental floss or thread to slice 1 1/2 inch long rolls.

In your baking pan (I had 2 rounds, but a 9x13 would be fine-I only took pictures of just the one pan, but I ended up with about 12 rolls) mix the melted butter and brown sugar.  Sprinkle in the pecans.  Now place each of your rolls in the pan, cover with a dish towel and let rise for 25 minutes.

After 25 minutes, they were ready to bake!

Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.  Invert on a serving tray right away and start eating :)

Since this was my first go-round, my total time from pulling out ingredients to eating a roll was about 70 minutes-not bad!  They taste very good--probably not award-winning when compared to other doughs, but very good.  Much better than the refrigerator/freezer rolls you can buy at the store.  

I'm pretty sure my sis-in-law uses this same recipe for monkey bread, dinner rolls, sandwich bread, pizza crust and more.  I'm going to keep trying it (adjusting the sugar amounts depending on my product).  Should be fun.

Soft Pretzels

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I was staring out the window today at yet another snow storm and decided that it was a bread kind of day.  I remember making pretzels once when I was a kid, maybe 10 or 11, pretty sure they did not turn out so good.  Fast forward a few decades and I think I've done a bit better this time.

Start to finish, it took about 2 1/2 hours.


In the bowl of your Kitchenaid:
1 1/2 C. warm water
2 T. brown sugar
2 1/4 tsp. yeast
1/2 c. melted butter

Let the yeast mixture sit for about 5 minutes.
 
Add 1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
4 1/2 C. all purpose flour

Mix with the dough hook on low until the flour is incorporated, then turn up to medium to get the dough into a ball that pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
 

Leave the dough in the mixer and cover the bowl with a dish towel.  Let the dough rise until double in size, which will take about an hour.   After it has risen, turn the mixer back on for a few turns to get the dough back into a manageable size ball.

 
Before you start forming the pretzel shapes, boil 3 quarts of water and preheat the oven to 425 degrees (when the water is actually boiling, SLOWLY add 2/3 cup of baking soda...it will get very foamy right at first, so go slow).

 



Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces.  Roll each piece into about an 18" long rope.  It was easiest to do this without any extra flour by rolling against the counter top.

 
Form the ropes into a pretzel shape.  Pick up each pretzel carefully and dunk it in the boiling solution for 30 seconds (my big pot could do just 2 at a time).  Pull the pretzel out with a large slotted spatula or spoon and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. You may be wondering why boil with the baking soda?  Its a chemical thing.  Baking soda is a base (as opposed to an acid) and the quick dip starts a chemical reaction where the dough starts yellowing and will let the pretzel brown nice and dark in the oven-it also adds that chewiness pretzels are famous for.  The egg wash you do later adds a bit of shine.  Apparently you can get even more spectacular results if you use food-grade lye, but...I don't have any of that, so baking soda it is.

 


 

These are big pretzels, so  you'll get 4 on a sheet.  Brush with a beaten egg and sprinkle with coarse salt (or sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar).

Bake for about 15 minutes until they are a dark pretzel color ( I rotated the baking sheet half way through so they cooked evenly).

I like my pretzels with mustard, but they'd be good with caramel or cheese sauce too. Tasty, warm snack on a cold day.