Oh, the joy of fungi!

I'm hitting the realm of baking hard. I made a sourdough starter last week, and this weekend, I tried baking with it. All in all, it was a success, but I learned several lessons along the way.

First, the starter. For those NOT in the know, sourdough breads are so classified not so much for their sour taste (not all have that taste) but for the fact that they are not made from a yeast/water/sugar mixture at the start like most yeast breads. Rather, you make what is called a starter - a runny mixture of flour, water, and a tiny bit of sugar. The starter attracts yeast and good bacteria from the air, and begins percolating. You use the starter instead of packets of active yeast when you bake. Purists would say that you should never use commercial yeast in your starter. I threw caution to the wind and added a bit of commercial yeast to my flour/water/sugar mixture to make sure the stuff got percolating. I used, as a base, an Emeril recipe for my starter, but I decreased the amount of commercial yeast, and added a 1/2 c of rye flour to the all purpose flour. I then mixed thoroughly, loosely covered the stuff in a non-metal bowl, and let it sit on the counter for about 24 hours. Then I put it in the fridge. It began to smell like warm beer almost instantly, a comforting smell.

The next step of sourdough prep is to make a sponge. The sponge is a mixture of starter, flour, and water, which you allow to sit at room temp for a number of hours until it triples in volume. To a cup of my starter, I added 2 c of flour, and about 3/4 c warm water and gave it a vigorous stir. It was amazing to see how active the yeast was - this stuff was snapping and popping like soda. I covered the bowl with a towel, and let it sit on the counter for about 8 hours, then refrigerated overnight.

Finally, the dough. For the dough, you take your sponge, and add about 1 1/2 c flour and I added a few tbsp of warm water. I also added some olive oil for flavor. I threw it in the ol' Kitchenaid with the dough hook, and let it knead for about 6-7 minutes. Then I hand kneaded for a bit, threw it in a greased bowl, and let it rise for an hour. After an hour, I repeated the hand kneading, let it go another hour. Then I got my oven heated to 400 (with a baking stone inside)* got the bread punched down a bit and formed into a rough loaf, and put it in the oven. Before I put it in, I placed a pan of water underneath the baking stone. This is to encourage a chewy crust.** I baked the loaf until it was golden and crisp all over, and gave it a brush of melted butter halfway through.***

It was really quite tasty, but I'll have to keep working to find that sour taste. Supposedly, the sour taste comes from the bacteria the starter/sponge pick up as they bubble away, but we'll see what happens in the future!

* Must heat oven longer so baking stone gets v. hot. Did not do this, and had to eventually flip the loaf over to get the bottom browned.
** Hmm, water doesn't boil in the oven and create steam. What you are supposed to do is put a metal pan in the oven and let it get super hot, then right before you add the dough to the oven, pour water into said superhot pan and create a steam room for the loaf.
*** Butter may make it tasty, but not shiny. Egg wash would be better.