I just thought I would talk about some of my favorite recipes. I have only been making sourdough for a few months, and I love it! I have dabbled a little in making loaves, but mainly make small treats. We've made and thoroughly enjoy bagels, pizza dough, biscuits, english muffins, cinnamon rolls, and pie crusts. Additionally we can make some amazing crackers from the discard!!
All our recipes we have gotten from the blog at little spoon farm.
This is the recipe I learned how to bake sourdough with. The instructions are phenomenal and really explain a lot that I didn't grasp in my first several attempts at baking with sourdough. Read the whole post from the beginning as there are some real nuggets of information! I generally use 70% white whole wheat flour and 30% unbleached all purpose flour which doesn't rise as well as bread flour, but it still makes a nice loaf. I generally do my entire rise time at room temperature (around 70°F) - 8 or more hours total time after adding the last flour. The refrigerator ferment is a nice way to slow it down even more if you won't have a ton of time to devote to the bread before baking it.
I really like to make sourdough English muffins...I call them Mountain Muffins.
This should yield approx 2 dozen muffins. It is half of my batch size. I use a 4.5” diameter round cutter to cut them out.
4 cups of milk (or whey) (if you leave it out to come up to room temp fermentation will happen faster)
740 grams ripe starter
125 grams honey
1300 grams flour
20 grams sea salt
I mix directly in a 12 qt container and add ingredients in the order listed (flour and salt pre-mixed) so that things don’t stick to the sides too bad. I mix it by hand until it is well mixed.
Leave it out to ferment 12-16 hours (you’re looking for at least double in size) before rolling it out on a well floured surface. It’s sticky. Flour is your friend. Let it rest for just a minute so that your rounds don’t suck back in after you cut them. I like them rolled out to roughly 1/2” thick. Cut with your round cutter. I keep re-rolling out the dough until I’ve used it up, hand shaping the last one or two. Just like roll cookies the more you roll the tougher they get, so we eat those fresh and freeze the best ones.
Proof for an hour and then pan fry over med low heat in your oil of choice (we do lard). You can finish them in the oven after you flip them for a more even cook. I find it takes approximately 5 min in a 400 degree oven.
Living at about 8000 feet means making changes to most recipes. Luckily I found a great high elevation sourdough bread recipe by Leavenly. I don’t change anything about the recipe, but I usually half the recipe. Half makes two loaves in my little Dutch ovens. Also, since I’m a total nerd, I made myself a form to help me track the waiting and kneading. Since I started using the form, the loaves have been a lot more consistent. I don’t buy bread anymore. Yum!
I’m a permaculture novice and I really appreciate this community!
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