I asked around on the Book of Faces and there seemed to be a lot of interest in this, so here goes a complete experiment! I’m going to use a combination of text (blog posts here) and video (facebook? youtube? still figuring it out!) to teach you what I know about sourdough starters and bread baking.
Goals
By the end of this course, you should be able to…
- Start a successful sourdough starter from only flour and water*.
- Maintain a sourdough starter, both when you are using it regularly and when you are not.
- Bake a loaf of bread with your own starter.
*Although we will also try the water, flour and pineapple juice method. Grab some pineapple juice if you want join in on that experiment.
Requirements
I am trusting that everyone who chooses to do this has a basic level of understanding how to use their kitchen safely. Other than that you need to have:
- Flour*
- Water
- A container for your starter with a lid
- A stirring implement
- A kitchen scale that can measure in grams or tenths of an ounce
- A bowl to mix in
- A functional oven
- A baking pan, small dutch oven, or loaf pan
Flour! Flour is the most important ingredient when starting your starter from scratch. You will want to have 2 flours on hand: all purpose flour and a whole grain flour. Your all-purpose wheat flour needs to be unbleached. For the whole-grain flour, either a whole-grain wheat or rye will work. (Organic flour is helpful but not necessary.) We will only be using a few ounces of flour at a time until we are actually baking bread, so a small bag of each flour should be fine.
Sound interesting? Sign up for the event on facebook. It won’t start until Wednesday, March 25th because I want you to have time to get supplies.
You can find the event on my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/helenascadian/
I have changed the start date to April 2nd to give time for ordering flour. All the grocery stores around here are OUT and I’m out of whole grain rye at home.