I unknowingly was part of a massively popular movement of baking their own sourdough during 2020. I am usually not one to hop on a bandwagon of any kind, but this one I was pretty stoked about.
My dear friend Lissie, gave me some of her sourdough starter... which is like gold! I quickly started learning about how to feed a starter, keep a starter, grow a starter and create sourdough and discard recipes.
After a lot of trial and error, I finally found a process that I memorized and I use to make a new batch every week for my family.
What drew me to the sourdough making process was fermentation. After watching a documentary on fermentation and a longing for becoming more self-reliant and wanting to learn how to make our own foods, I chose sourdough as my first step in that direction.
You'll need:
plenty of olive oil (or flour or water)
a bowl
clean hands
3 cups flour (choose organic, non gmo, the more local the better)
2~ cups of water
1/2 cup sourdough starter
1 tsp pink Himalayan sea salt
1 Tbsp raw honey
This is my base, I take my sourdough starter, add in all the other ingredients.
Then mix together until I get a wet dough base. Once mixed through, I let sit for 30 minutes. Then I will fold, I wet my hands with water or olive oil, that way the dough will not stick to my hands, then I take each section of the dough and fold to the other side.
Then this sits for 2 hours and I repeat the process.
I repeat this all day and then at night before I go to bed, I will put the dough where I want to bake it. I have baked it in a loaf pan, in a Dutch oven or in a medium sized sauce pan.
If you put the dough in what you bake it in, it will rise nicely and will not fall. If it falls too much it will go flat (still delicious, just not that airy bread you think of).
I sometimes will sprinkle salt & pepper on top or Everything Bagel Spice.
Once I got this process down, I then started experimenting with adding garlic to make garlic bread, or cinnamon-raisin bread.
This process is fun, therapeutic and there is just something about making something with my own two hands for my family instead of buying it at the store that keeps pushing me to learn more ways I can provide.
I have also started selling my sourdough bread!
So if you have been itching for a homemade, less processed, healthier loaf of bread and wanting to support locally please go order a loaf!
I can offer classic sourdough, everything bagel sourdough, cinnamon-raisin bread, turmeric spiced bread or garlic bread at this point! You can also check out some of the other offerings we have listed...bone broth, elderberry syrup, planter boxes, chicken coops!
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