Ever since I read through GNOWFGLINS Sourdough A to Z eBook, I have been inspired to make bubbles again. Sourdough bubbles that is. I am excited to report that over the past few days, I have worked to revive my sourdough! (Actually, I just started over with a new starter because my original one was very…dead.)
These are my bubbles. Aren’t they simply gorgeous? (Just nod and smile.)
I shared about making Sourdough Starter about two and a half years ago and was very excited to make sourdough breads a healthy habit in my kitchen. Making a sourdough starter is stinkin’ easy (and by stinkin‘, I mean that the starter really does begin sporting a mildly sour funk after a few days). But I really had no idea what to do with my starter after it was started. I played around with making bread a few times, but never got anything more than a few dense loaves that my family didn’t like. And so, my sourdough starter died a long, slow death in my refrigerator because after a few months, I stopped feeding it or trying to do anything productive with it. It’s a sad story really.
BUT, I’m all excited about sourdough again, which is why I created a new starter. I love that not only does Sourdough A to Z eBook have very thorough instructions about how to make a sourdough starter, it has loads of recipes and ideas with directions for what to do with your sourdough starter. We’re talking cakes and muffins and pita bread and pizza crust and all kinds of great goodies. I never knew there were so many things to make with sourdough! (Forgive me for sounding like I’m writing an over-eager book review. The GNOWFGLINS ladies didn’t ask me to write this. I’m just excited about my bubbles.)
Here’s the front view of my jar of sourdough starter on day three.
Again, see my cute little bubbles?
Because all of these items are made from sourdough starter, they are so much easier for our bodies to digest. I was kinda hoping you’d get excited with me and try getting a sourdough starter going too, if you don’t already have one. Let’s make bubbles together, wanna? Think of the fun we’ll have!!! (Yes, it would appear that I’ve gone a little sourdough silly.)
If you eat a gluten free diet, never fear – Sourdough A to Z eBook even shares how to create and use a Gluten Free Starter!!!! Yes, we can ALL play at this game!!!
This happens to be a perfect time of year to get a sourdough starter going, as the weather is warm, making for easier and happier bubbles. :) I was eager this morning and with my new sourdough starter, made delicious muffins based on a recipe in Sourdough A to Z. They didn’t taste one bit sour, in case you were wondering. My boys didn’t even know they were sourdough and ate their typical three to five muffins each. ;)
Tomorrow I’m going to follow the eBook directions for making a loaf of bread. I’ll share the results whether it’s pretty or not so pretty. Here’s hoping for a successful sourdough bread making experience!
If you want to create a sourdough starter, but aren’t able to purchase the ebook, please click on this link and scroll down to the beginning of the series of posts that describe day by day instructions for how to make a starter. Since the recipes in the Sourdough A to Z eBook aren’t mine to share, I’ll only be able to talk about them and show you pictures of my results, but not print the recipes themselves.
Okay, here’s hoping for a lovely loaf of sourdough bread at our house tomorrow!!! What’s been your sourdough experience?
Amanda Bowers says
I’m on day 5 of my sourdough starter following your blog and I just purchased the 1 month basic membership on GNOWFGLINS. I watched the tortilla video tonight. I can’t wait to try the recipes. I got a big mixer for mother’s day last year, then I got pregnant and didn’t have the energy for anything. Now, I’m ready to get back to it and learn how to make more healthy foods from scratch. I’ll post about it next week and let you know. Thanks for sharing with me.
Cristy says
I just got my starter out about a week ago after a long break. My boys love the sourdough waffles and pancakes, so we have been going through it pretty quickly! I hope your bread turns out well, I haven’t been brave enough to try that one again yet, either. Happy baking!
Katrina says
I’m eager to see how your bread turns out. I can make a nice loaf of white sourdough bread but when it comes to whole wheat sourdough I get bricks. Who knew so much could be done with sourdough! I have a lot to learn!
Mindy @ The Purposed Heart says
Yay Laura! I’m so glad that you are getting your sourdough started again. You will have so much fun with all the recipes from the Sourdough A to Z book. You have to try the English Muffins if you haven’t already. I usually make a triple batch. They are sooo good – my husbands favorite. :-) Along with the waffles!
I just got my sourdough out of the fridge yesterday. I was so scared because I had majorly neglected it over the past month, and I thought for sure that it was dead. I fed it, not expecting too much to happen, and yay! it is alive and well with TONS of gorgeous bubbles!
Can’t wait to hear how your bread turns out. :-)
Mkcoehoorn says
I have two starters going right now. One will be ready to bake tomorrow (Wed) and the other on Thursday. My hubby isn’t to thrilled with the fragrance permeating the kitchen right now, but I’m looking forward to having some yummy bread.
Kristi says
are you able to share any of the recipes, or is it a copyright violation? I’ve been on the fence as to whether to purchase the book. I’m debating on whether it is truly worth the money…
Laura says
As far as I know, I’m not able to share any recipes. I really feel like this ebook is worth the money. I never print out ebooks, and I printed this one out to have in my kitchen. It’s full of good recipes!
Kristi says
Thought I would let you know that I did end up purchasing it. I couldn’t believe that is was 150 pages!! I figured it would be like 30. I was pleasantly surprised!!! I havven’t been able to read through it much yet, but I’m excited by what I’m seeing now.
Karen says
Are at least most of the flour (grain) recipes soaked over night to deal with the phytate issue?
Laura says
Although I haven’t looked at every single recipe, all the ones I’ve looked at soak overnight to deal with phytates. They are pretty careful about that and the book really focuses on digestive health.
Jessica says
We are loving our sourdough too! I took the GNOWFGLINS e-course. Some of my family’s favorites are the cinnamon rolls, biscuits (which I’m making today), tortillas and of course my wheat sensitive daughter is super happy to eat yummy sourdough spelt bread with no eczema symptoms! Yeah! Hope your bread turns out well!
Hannah says
Laura, my sourdough experience had been a lot like yours, in that all I got was lovely doorstops. But I found this cracker recipe and now it is pretty much all I use my starter for. At least it’s a step in the right direction. I am trying to experiment more with bread but so far my loaves have only turned out well with half white flour.
1 cup “discarded” sourdough starter
1/4 cup room temperature lard from pastured pork (or coconut oil or softened butter)
1 cup whole wheat or spelt flour, or as much as you need to make a stiff dough
1/2 tsp sea salt
Coarse salt (such as kosher salt) for sprinkling on top
Mix all together and let sit 7-24 hours. Roll out thin, cut in squares, sprinkle on salt, and bake at 350 for 16 minutes. Turn off oven and let crisp up overnight. They taste like cheese crackers!
http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2010/03/08/sourdough-recipes-galore-whole-wheat-crackers/
Melanie says
I’ve been doing the sourdough starter for several months now…and my first experiements with bread were a flop…everyone ate them, but didn’t like the sourdough flavor. Then I found a Country Bread recipe…and they love it! It’s very simple:
Mix 1/2 c starter, 2c water, 2c flour(of choice, I usually whole wheat)and 1 tsp sugar (I estimate that…lol) Mix that all together and let set – I put mine in the oven with the light on where it is nice and warm – for about an hour or until it is nice and froathy/bubbly. Then mix in 2T oil, 2t salt (I usually cut this down) and the enough flour to make a soft dough (usually 2-4c). Knead it for 8-10 minutes, put in greased loaf pan and let rise (again, I usually put mine in the oven with the light on). When doubled, bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.
You can follow portions of my sourdough story at my blog under baking. We called it Pioneer Bread, and after I had a successful sourdough loaf I quit blogging about it for awhile, but we stopped doing the actual sourdough and went to the country bread which is what we do now.
Hope that helps some…I get some much good stuff from you!
Kristin says
I’m excited to see how your bread turns out. I’ve been wanting to purchase the e-course for a while now. I’m just getting good a making bread, and think this would be great to learn. Thanks for sharing your kitchen with us. I always learn so much!
Kim says
I’ve been making sourdough bread, weekly, for 2 years now, but I’ve fallen off the wagon on making other baked goods with my starter. Thanks for the info on the e-book! Here’s my Honey Whole-Wheat Sourdough Bread recipe:
http://lesstoxiclife.blogspot.com/2011/03/honey-whole-wheat-sourdough-bread.html
Lisa@HappyinDoleValley says
Too funny! I also posted about the GNOWFLINS eCourse here: http://happyindolevalley.blogspot.com/2011/04/sourdough-starter-help.html and here: http://happyindolevalley.blogspot.com/2011/04/warm-spring-day-and-other-homestead.html
The second link includes an amazing (well, amazing to me!!) photo of my super bubbly starter made following the same instructions you did from GNOWFLINS. We had to go out of town for a few days, so my lovely starter spent a week in our fridge, but I’m working on reviving it this week. Spooning half into my compost goes against my thinking as it seems like such a waste, but I agree with Wardeh that without doing so, sourdough starter has a way of growing and taking over! I’ll be posting as soon as my starter is recharged and ready for baking. I don’t have the eCourse myself as we simply can’t afford it right now. Instead, I’ll be using my tried and true SD bread recipe that you can find here: http://happyindolevalley.blogspot.com/2011/03/sourdough-bread-recipe.html
Blessings!
Sandra says
I found a very nicely done explanation of the initial stink and how to avoid it. It is caused by bacteria that are not in the final sourdough, which grow in an initially non-acidic mixture of flour and water. They do help in making the batter more acidic, at which point the desirable bacteria take over. These are followed by the wild yeast. The initial bubbling is not from yeast at all, but from those stinky bacteria.
The woman who did the investigation determined that the way to avoid this is very simple. The first day’s mixture should be pineapple juice and flour instead of water and flour. You can use orange juice or apple cider instead of the pineapple juice, but then you have to replace the water with juice for three days instead of just one. This is because orange juice and apple cider are less acidic than pineapple juice. I encourage you to read the two webpages linked to below. They excited me almost to the point of making a new sourdough starter, but since my established one is doing fine I resisted the temptation to fix “what ain’t broke”.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10856/pineapple-juice-solution-part-1
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10901/pineapple-juice-solution-part-2
angela rose says
I am in the middle of the GNOWFGLINS e-course and we LOVE it. The Honey bread is great! The waffles are really AMAZING and the sourdough tortillas are now my go to recipe! I just tried the english muffins yesterday – success again! Who would of thought I could make my own english muffins. I highly reccomend the e-book or e-course!!
Sandra says
I was trying so hard to make sure I had no typos in the pineapple sourdough solution post that I forgot to say that I regularly bake whole wheat sourdough bread now. It rises beautifully, cuts nicely, and has a good crumb for sandwiches. The trick is that sourdough takes more time to rise than dough leavened with baker’s yeast. The process is two-step.
1. Feed the starter at room temperature the night before you intend to use it. Without this step, the bread will taste good but will be dense no matter what you do the following day.
2. Let the mixed dough rise for four hours before shaping and proofing it. Proof it for at least 90 minutes. Both the rising and the proofing take about twice as long as for dough leavened with baker’s yeast.
I learned these tips from Jonathen Kandell’s “Making Desem Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread” which is posted on the Internet here: http://www.sysmatrix.net/~jkandell/Desem-web-jk6.doc
The bread that I bake is adapted from his recipe. My loaves are baked in a 12″ hearth pan and weight about 3.5 lbs each. A picture of my most recent loaf is posted here: http://community.kingarthurflour.com/sites/default/files/IMG_0120_0.JPG
Kim says
Thanks for the link to Jonathen’s article. That sounds very helpful! I’ve been making bread for 2 years, but don’t know all the “technicals” on how to improve the loaf.
Jenny says
I have been doing sourdough for a couple of weeks now. My bread turns out fairly good. I had to use store bought WW because I ran out of wheat berries, so not sure if that had anything to do with the texture. But it is edible and I agree, I think is healthier since it is fermented, etc. I got my recipe out of the Back to Basics book that I have had since the 1980s.
Angelia says
You can check out some sourdough recipes at the gnowfglins website too – pancakes, waffles, english muffins, & pizza crust:)
Barb @ A Life in Balance says
So exciting! I’m trying to revive my starter which has been sitting in the fridge for far too long. However, as soon as I got the starter going again, I got busy with the end of the year school stuff.
Thank you so much for mentioning the gluten-free starter in the book. I pointed someone who asked about that on my blog to the GNOWFGLINS blog because I had no idea. Now I can say, yes, you can do that.
I’ll have to check the book out, too.
Becky says
I’ve used sourdough starter in the past, but mostly for waffles. I love the waffle recipe I have, but I never liked the bread I made with it. I let my sourdough die quite a bit ago, but I’ll join in and try to get one going again. I look forward to seeing how your bread comes out. My hubby really likes sourdough bread, but only with white flour. I would like to use wheat flour for it.
Janet says
oooh, i have sourdough envy! I have blogged about starting (and keeping, and using) a starter, and I also started mine, but then it got hopelessly moldy all over it and my husband and I decided to throw it away. I haven’t made one since. :-( Maybe this will be my week too! Thanks!
http://thegoodsonfood.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-recipes-sourdough-oatmeal-apple.html
Michelle Fischer says
i have had my sourdough starter since 1986 and it still is active, iknow that sounds crazy but it still tastes wonderful! It started as something my grandma brought back from a senior citizen trip. She always made rolls and cinnamon rolls and pancakes from her starter. She gave me the starter when i graduated college and got married. She passed away 5 years ago and i am very thankful she gave me her starter. I feed it faithfully every week and if i dont need bread for our family, i make mini loaves and give it to my kids teachers at school or i leave a wrapped loaf in my neighbors mailbox for a nice surprise for them to arrive home to! I hope you have good luck with your new starter. My starter is fed with mashed potatoe flakes, sugar and water. You let it sit out all day and then in the evening you take out 1 cup and put the jar back in the fridge. You make your dough and let it rise in a glass bowl all night. Then in the morning you make it into rolls or bread or cinnamon rolls. You let it rise again for a couple of hours and then you bake it. you can repeat this process every 3 days but i only do it once a week. I also have a separate sourdough starter for french bread that was in my Taste of Home Cookbook. i make 2 loaves of french bread with it every week.
Cery says
I love love love my sourdough starter! I make bread with it once a week and lots of other things too. Biscuits, waffles, cinnamon rolls, coffeecake, etc. I don’t use whole wheat flour because my kids don’t like it, but I use organic King Arthur flour. If anyone is interested in recipes, I have several on my blog at http://www.lifeatbearcreekfarm.wordpress.com.
Stacy Myers says
I bought the book too and LOVE it! I’ve made my starter and it’s doing really great. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, I’m too afraid to use it. Ha, ha! I still haven’t made anything. You’ve given me the push!
Tammie@SimpleHealthyTasty says
I’ve been thinking about wanting to learn to make sour dough for a while now! Maybe your inspiring example will give me just the motivation I need!!!!
Kristi says
Love my ebook….I carry it around everywhere with my Nourishing Traditions book and my iPad for easy access to Heavenly Homemakers :-)
Karen says
I have to say I bought the e-book, too, after reading so many good reviews here! I haven’t printed it all out but lots so far!
ShorterMama says
Okay – so I recently composted my whole sour dough starter (Reginald). I thought I killed him!! Why – well – perhaps after making crackers (from the A to Z ebook) I maybe didn’t feed him every twelve hours, and then liquid (sort of orangish) seemed to be rising to the top (using rye flour instead of wheat). So I thought, surely he must be dead! I just saw your picture though and it looks like your starter had some liquid rising to the top too!! Help! Did I just throw out a perfectly good starter?? Is this something that’s supposed to happen?!? This newbie may have just thrown away a live and kicking sour dough starter :(
Laura@HeavenlyHomemakers says
Oh dear, poor Reginald. Liquid rising to the top is very normal, so he could have still been okay, but I really have no idea. I’m getting better at this sourdough thing, but I’m definitely not an expert by any means. I think it takes quite a bit to kill a starter. It needs to be not fed for a LONG time and neglected in the back of your fridge for weeks or months (like mine). There are times I’ll forget to feed my sourdough for a day or two or three, then I revive it by feeding it for a few consecutive days and babying it for a while.
So orange liquid, huh? I’ve never tried using rye. Very interesting! :)
Shannon says
I did it! I finally signed up for the gnowflins E-course and my only regret is not doing it earlier. I’ve already made english muffins, pizza dough and pancakes. Thanks for the inspiration Laura. Growing the starter has probably been the most amazing thing to me. Watching it come alive!