I digress, but in a good direction. Doughnuts anyone?

So I failed miserably at sourdough. I decided to wait until the weather is warmer (which it is now, very nice and humid) to try again. The day after my last post, the starter refused to grow at all. Hopefully my next attempt will work better, and I can continue to post the process when I catch up to where I was.

In the meantime... today is National Doughnut Day. That seems worthy of a post, no?

Here we go. I made plain cake doughnuts tonight, I will certainly revisit this again to try other kinds of doughnuts as well.

This recipe is courtesy of Allrecipes.com, and is very similar to the doughnuts I used to eat by the handfuls at coffee hour after church when I was growing up.

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp salt
1 T baking powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 dash ground nutmeg. (Ok, I used two dashes)
2 T melted butter
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
Oil for frying

1. Preheat the oil in your deep fryer to 375 degrees.
2. Mix together in a large bowl all the dry ingredients.
3. Mix in the butter until it become slightly crumbly (there's not enough butter to make it ALL crumbly)
4. Stir in the milk and egg until it forms a smooth, very soft dough. If the dough is like a drippy batter, knead in extra flour, a tablespoon at a time, until it is thick enough to form a very soft ball (see photo)
5. Knead lightly, then place on a floured surface. Dust the top of the ball with flour to lightly coat.
6. Roll the dough to 1/4 inch thickness.
7. Cut into desired shape. I cut most of mine into traditional doughnuts (and doughnut holes). Then I took the scraps, divided them into thirds, and made a braided doughnut. (See pictures)
8. Carefully drop the doughnuts into the hot oil. Do not crowd the fryer.
9. Fry for 3 minutes, turning at 1:30. Drain on paper towels.

These came out really good - a bit crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. The cinnamon and nutmeg add great flavor - no frosting or glazing needed (although use of either is not discouraged!)

Enjoy! Happy Baking... er... frying!

A perfect ball of dough

Rolled out and ready to cut

That looks about right.

Save those doughnut holes!

Using every bit of dough

The first one is in!

These cook much more quickly - watch them closely

Three minutes worked for the braid too

Those look perfect

Those came out pretty good too

Enjoy! Yum.

Sourdough... Day Four

Day Four - last day of building the seed. Today it should have doubled or more (mine doubled) and should be developing a great sour odor. If it has not at least doubled, let it sit out another 12-24 hours until it does.

Once it has doubled, discard half again, and one more time add a cup of flour and a half cup of room temperature water. Fully incorporate, mark it with tape like a champ, and wrap it up.

Let it sit until it doubles (at least) in size. This could take anywhere from 4-24 hours. It should be soft and spongelike - if you tap the container, it should fall. That is your sign that it is ready to turn into a barm.

Get excited! You are only a few days from sourdough!

Happy Baking!

A good doubling. Smells great!

Ready to be barm tomorrow!

Sourdough... Day Three

Day Three is super exciting. Probably the best day of the whole process.

Ha ha ha.

Today there should be a bit of rise on the dough, about 50% or so. I saw about a 1 cup increase in volume, so mine is about right on. Today, I discarded half of my starter (well, actually I split it into a second container for a friend) and fed it with the same ingredients as yesterday - 1 cup bread flour, 1/2 cup room temperature water. Mix thoroughly and re-cover with plastic wrap, set out for 24 hours.

Don't worry, this day is not a glitch in the matrix...

Tomorrow, assuming there is a good enough rise (at least doubled) I get to turn my seed into a barm, which is sort of like the sourdough equivalent of pre-med.

Happy Baking!

Sourdough... Day Two

On day two, we are simply feeding the seed with some more flour and water. A high gluten flour is important - I don't have any "high gluten" flour on hand, but bread flour will do.

The seed dough won't have risen much this first day. It will be much softer and wetter than yesterday though.

Simply add 1 cup of bread or high gluten flour and 1/2 cup of room temperature water to the seed dough, mixing with a spoon until the added ingredients are well distributed.

Re-pat down the dough and move your tape to mark the new height of the mixture (should be close to 2 cups total)

Re-wrap, and store at room temperature another 24 hours.

See you tomorrow, happy baking!

Remember me?

I used to blog here... long ago. Well, it's time to start again. So without boring you with a sob story about work and kids and cleaning my garage, let's get to it.

I've decided to make sourdough. Sourdough is a bread that has been made since ancient times. The sour taste comes partially from the fermentation process, which cultures natural, or "wild" yeast naturally present, rather than adding yeast. The process of preparing the start also cultivates acids, which share responsibility for the complex sour flavors added.

I've chosen to start with the traditional, "basic" sourdough recipe in "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" - a book I've referred to before (search my blog for keyword Anadema)

The entire starter process takes about a week, first I will make a "seed" which cultivates the wild yeast that will then be developed in the starter, or "barm"

Tonight is night 1. The seed process will probably take about 4-5 days, depending on the environment you work in. Temperature and humidity in your kitchen will both affect the quality of your seed and the amount of time it takes to properly develop.

The seed in the recipe I'm using calls for starting with Rye flour, but I don't have any, and whole wheat flour can easily be substituted. The flavor is really all that will be affected. The nice thing about sourdough is that once you are comfortable with the process, you can make all sorts of changes - nothing will ruin the flavor, it will just make it unique.

The steps for tonight are easy:

1. In a small bowl, mix 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup of room temperature water. Ensure that all the flour has been hydrated. Depending on how you measure your flour, you may end up with either a thick paste or a very stiff dough ball (should be more like a paste - if not, see prior recipes for a discussion of how to measure flour)

2. Press the dough into the bottom of a 4 cup liquid measuring cup. Mark the current level of the seed with a piece of tape, and wrap the top with plastic wrap. Set it on the counter and let it rest for 24 hours.

That's it. We'll come back tomorrow and feed it, re-mark it, and re-wrap it.

Happy Baking!

Start with good flour



Good old fashioned water



A proper cup of flour



The seed mixture



Marked and ready to rest