I’ve been baking bread for four or five years, but I’ve always been intimidated by sourdough. I didn’t know how to make a starter (um – I still don’t) and the whole thing seemed complicated. Lately, though, I’ve gotten curious.

Last week some friends gave me a part of their starter to give it a shot, and I’m so excited. They handed over some of their favorite beginner recipes, too, but those looked pretty complicated, and I got intimidated (…again). So I looked around and found a recipe over at The Kitchn for a beautiful sourdough sandwich loaf. I haven’t made a lot of sandwich loaves, either, so I was pretty excited to do some experimenting.

I didn’t have anywhere near the two cups of starter called for by that recipe, though. I learned that you can “feed” the starter by adding equal parts water and flour, which I did. I was worried that doing this just one day before baking would dilute the sour flavor, but that didn’t seem to be a problem at all.

Based on the comments on that recipe and a gut feeling, I did make some tweaks to the recipe. I cut in it half to only make one loaf; for the bulk rise, I let it sit overnight; and while it was baking, I noticed that the crust wasn’t forming as well as I would have liked, so I brushed it a few times with butter. The recipe calls for pre-heating a pan on the bottom of the oven and then pouring boiling water into the pan just before baking the loaf. I flubbed this step, which I think is why my crust wasn’t quite right.

first loaf of sourdough sandwich bread

But it was definitely not bad! The flavor was great — pretty sour, thanks to the long rise. The texture was really nice, though I may have over-worked it a little because it was not as airy as I had hoped. Next time I’ll only punch it down a little bit before shaping the loaf.

We ate about half the loaf, with butter, brie and salami, within a few hours of baking. I’m excited to try again next week!

And I’m now on the prowl for great (and ideally easy) sourdough recipes, in case you know of any…

June 30, 2011

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