Sourdough Sandwich Loaf

When the COVID-19 lockdown started and people started panic buying food and household items, I ran pretty quickly into an empty bread aisle. “No problem,” I thought. “I can bake bread.” Then I found the baking aisle was devoid of any yeast to make bread with. YIKES.

Now, my mom used to keep sourdough starter in her kitchen, so I knew it was possible to draw down yeast from the air and create a yeast colony. And. I found lots of info on the ‘net about how to get a starter going. So I started working on my own starter.

Well, after several attempts my bread was still coming out like bricks. I tried several different recipes but the truth seems to be that my starter just wasn’t robust enough.

While I wasn’t able to produce bread I was happy with, I did find other things I could make with the starter that I was happy with. One was a recipe for crackers made with leftover starter. (Here's my variation that includes parmesan cheese).  And more recently, I found you could make a nice coffee cake with starter.

But after several weeks of mistreatment (missed feedings, long periods in the fridge, etc.) I seem to have finally gotten a colony that is consistently producing nice loaves of bread. It’s my belief that the “mistreatment” caused natural selection to let only the strongest yeast survive, thus strengthening the starter.

The current recipe I’m using is this one: Basic Sourdough Bread on Food.com. I have been able to use both all-purpose flour and bread flour with this recipe, though the bread flour has produced a much finer texture and lighter bread.

If you try any of these, let me know how they turn out and any changes you make.

Sourdough Crackers

I’ve been working with sourdough starter since the COVID-19 quarantine has left me with extra time on my hands. One of the things I’ve hated is tossing out part of the starter when I feed it. I just recently found out that there are even recipes that use the discarded starter! I’ve made these twice and they disappear quickly.

The basic recipe I’m using is from King Arthur Flour’s site and this is my modification of the original recipe, since they leave the choice of seasoning to you.

Ingredients

• 1 cup (113g) King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 cup (248g) sourdough starter, unfed/discard
• 4 tablespoons (57g) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons dried herbs of your choice (see my herb mixture below)
• oil, for brushing
• coarse salt (such as kosher or sea salt) for sprinkling on top

Herb Mixture

• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp parsley
• 1 tsp basil
• 2 Tbl Parmesan cheese

Instructions
Mix together the flour, salt, sourdough starter, butter, and optional herbs to make a smooth (not sticky), cohesive dough.
Divide the dough in half, and shape each half into a small rectangular slab. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes, or up to a couple of hours, until the dough is firm.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Very lightly flour a piece of parchment, your rolling pin, and the top of the dough.
Working with one piece at a time, roll the dough to about 1/16" thick. The dough will have ragged, uneven edges; that's OK. Just try to make it as even as possible.
Transfer the dough and parchment together onto a baking sheet. Lightly brush with oil and then sprinkle the salt over the top of the crackers.
Cut the dough into 1 1/4" squares; a rolling pizza wheel works well here.
Prick each square with the tines of a fork.
Bake the crackers for 20 to 25 minutes, until the squares are starting to brown around the edges. Midway through, reverse the baking sheets: both top to bottom, and front to back; this will help the crackers brown evenly.
When fully browned, remove the crackers from the oven, and transfer them to a cooling rack. Store airtight at room temperature for up to a week; freeze for longer storage.
NOTE: If the center crackers are not dry enough, leave them out to dry for an hour or two.

Cocoa Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup flour
  
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
  
• 1/4 tsp salt
  
• 1/4 cup cocoa
  
• 1/2 cup sugar (or Splenda, see below)
  
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
  
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
  
• 1/2 cup butter
  
• 1 egg
  
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
  
• 1 Tbl sugar-free maple syrup 
  

Prep:
Combine flour, soda, salt, and cocoa in a bowl and mix well. Cream the butter for about 30 seconds with a mixer (longer if the butter is very cold or stiff). Add the sugars and peanut butter and mix until well-incorporated, then drop in the egg and vanilla and beat until the mixture is uniformly smooth.

Add the flour mixture a little at a time, making sure it gets mixed in well. Toward the end, the mixture will get tough to mix, then add the syrup to loosen it up a bit. Mix the syrup in well.

Drop the cookies by spoonfuls (about 3/4 to 1 inch size) onto a baking sheet (about an inch between them). Bake for 10 minutes in a 375 degree oven.

You can also make these with Splenda, and they taste great! They don't make as much bulk (sugar adds bulk to cookies and cakes and Splenda doesn't), but they have 1/2 as much carbs!

When baking with Splenda, it's important to mix it about 1/2 and 1/2 with real sugar, to help give the characteristics of sugar (browning/carmelization and bulk). Since this recipe has equal parts brown sugar and regular sugar, you can just substitute the Splenda for the white sugar. But since Splenda disintegrates when it gets wet, losing bulk, mix it with the flour rather than with the other sugars.