Until recently (read: when I made these loaves), I'd never had sourdough bread. My boyfriend kept raving about it, though, and when we found some dry sourdough starter when we are at the new Whole Foods in Nashville, he begged me to make it. It took me awhile to get around to it, but I finally did. Truthfully, I didn't get successful bread until the second try. Ideally, the starter should be doing its thing at around 80-90 degrees. The instructions that came with mine said that if it was too cold in your home, to put it in an oven with only the oven light on. I'm sure that would work just fine, except my oven is old and does not have such a light (but oh what I wouldn't give to have an oven that had one!). As such, it took my starter longer than the instructions suggested it would to actually be viable. In my sourdough ignorance, I tried to use it before it was ready and man was that dough tough. And it didn't rise; not one bit. So I threw it out, waited several days (and a couple of more feedings) and actually got my dough to rise. Woohoo! I'm told the sour flavor will grow stronger over time, but my first (okay, technically second) attempt was certainly not bad. And now that I've got the starter going, my boyfriend says he wants to try making the next loaf.
21 comments:
Your bread looks beautiful! I fear trying sourdough bread because I know it would fail, so I lovingly admire your beautiful bread. =)
yep, you are braver then I .. we have sourdough waffles and pancakes.. But, I am afraid to try to do bread.. yours looks fab!
It looks GREAT!!
It looks great! I've been using some Friendship Sourdough Starter for a few weeks now, baking bread each week. It's passed down from friend to friend...but you feed it with sugar and potato flakes, so it tends to be really sweet...good for cinnamon rolls. Not good for pizza crust.
Anyhow, I live in Memphis and my boyfriend lives in Nashville. I go to that Whole Foods a couple times a month when I visit him. I was just there this weekend, in fact. It's so new and nice. I love it!
wow, are you sure you're not a bread-baking expert?? that loaf looks PHENOMENAL!! And how fun that your boyfriend wants to try baking a loaf next! :0)
greetings from sourdough-bread land. your loaf looks PERFECT. I'm glad we can buy sourdough bread here because I'd never dare making it. excellent job! :-)
Ooooh I love sourdough bread - and yours looks fantastic!
I really like your blog and will place it on my list of links!! Here is my blog address if you like to have a look at it. I come from Holland, but my blog is in English.
Best wishes,
Monique
http://receptenmonique.blogspot.com/
Bread baking is in the male genes, except for challah. Just braid it and it'll all even out.
congratulations. i am feeling inpired. this is the second sour dough bread blog entry i have read this week!
Thanks for the comment, susan, but I have to disagree with bread baking being in the male genes. I've been successfully making a variety of bread for many years now, as have countless other women I know.
This post is almost a few months old now (WOW do I need to update my blog). Our sourdough starter is doing great. It just took a little patience at the start.
That looks so delicious.
May I add you to my blogroll?
Just popping by to see if you had any new posts. I miss your posts and hope you come back.
Sure, idhappens (cute username, by the way), you are welcome to add me to your blogroll. I will add you to mine when I update it soon.
vivacious vegan, I know, I have sorely neglected this blog. I uploaded some pictures to make a new post a few weeks ago, but somehow didn't make it any further than that. We are making some blackberry jelly tonight. I didn't take pictures of the whole process, but I'll at least take some of the end result (assuming it is successful) and blog about it.
that looks awesome! i know it's silly, but i'm scared of making sourdough bread.
The bread looks beautiful I have to tell you!
Made my first sourdough bake this wekk and was not too impressed with what I did. Your photo is what my mother's bread looked like (bless her soul) when she was around to bake. Mine was hard on the outside and rather compact on the inside. Anyhow (wink) I am a guy trying to make sourdough bread and yes my first batch was all over my "jeans" and shirt. flour ever where. Thanks for being here.
Joe from NC
You'll get the hang of it, Joe. Just keep on feeding the starter. My sourdough bread has gotten a lot better as the starter has matured (or however you say that).
Just found your blog, and it's great. Keep it coming!
Hi, I'm a Jewish vegetarian too. Mostly vegan. Maybe you'd like some of the stuff on my blog, the Goofy Gourmet: http://goofygourmet.blogspot.com/
I too am scared to try sourdough bread since hand-made whole wheat bread completely defeated me, even after a year. I pretty much rely on my bread machine to save me.
Beautiful bread, I'm hoping to make some sourdough soon but actually make my own starter for it. I'm not entirely confident enough to do that at this point yet though.
The way I compensate for my house being too cold for starters and bread to rise well in the winter is I set the oven to "warm", which is around 130˚F, turn it off, prop open the door with the towel(a few inches at most) and put the bread in there. I'm not sure if that would cause the starter to grow too quickly at first or not, but it'd be worth a shot.
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