Get this!: To make a sourdough starter, all you need are TWO INGREDIENTS: flour and water. That's it! Given that, I thought I'd give it a shot and it's been amazingly simple AND fun! If you want to give it a try at your home, here are some very simple guidelines.
To Make a Sourdough Starter:
1. Take equal parts flour (white or wheat, any kind) and water (1/2 cup each is a good start) and mix them together really well with a wooden spoon in a glass quart canning jar. Scrape down the sides and leave it covered (but not airtight) on the countertop for 12 hours. (Make sure your starter temperature remains approximately between 70 and 80 degrees. The yeast and bacteria you're culturing grow best within this range.)
2. Feed your starter equal parts flour and water every 12 hours henceforth (you may want to remove half of the starter before you feed it so that your yeast and bacteria colony can grow quickly without you growing an enormous starter.) After about a week, you can stop removing half of your starter. It's easiest to remember to feed your starter by feeding when you wake up and before you go to bed. After the first week, you can just keep feeding it any amount of equal parts flour and water every 12 hours, keeping it between 70 and 80 degrees. That's it!
3. If you get tired of feeding your starter, you can just feed it, then put it in the fridge for a week (refrigeration slows down the process), and feed it only once per week. When you're ready to use it again, remove it from the fridge, feed it a couple of times, and it's ready to be used.
Once you've established your starter, here's a really simple recipe for Sourdough English Muffins:
8-24 hours before making your muffins, stir together well in a medium glass bowl:
1/2 cup sourdough starter
1 cup milk
2 cups flour
Cover with a plate and leave to sour overnight.
8 -24 hours later, (or in the morning), sprinkle these ingredients on top of your dough:
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp honey
Incorporate these ingredients into the dough with your hands well, and fire up your griddle or fry pan to medium (or 350 F for an electric griddle).
Set aside a small bowl of cornmeal. Take the dough out of the glass bowl and put it on the countertop or on a cutting board dusted with cornmeal. Shape (or cut out with a round cookie cutter) into 8 round pieces and coat them with cornmeal to prevent the dough from sticking to any surfaces. Let them rest a few minutes, up to an hour.
Carefully slide the muffins onto the griddle or pan and cook for 5 minutes on each side or until they are done, being careful not to smash the risen muffins when you flip them. (I found that after cooking 1 side, I flip them and then turn off the griddle and leave them to cook on the cooling griddle for up to an hour is just about perfect!)
Enjoy!
P.s.: There are many health benefits to sourdough, which is why I decided to try making it in the first place. You can google them yourself! :)
2 comments:
Hey there! Saw your recipe for the sourdough crepes and wondered what starter you used? Ok, tell me this. I know sourdough is a good thing, but it really took me FOREVER to clean out my glass jars (moving the starter from one glass to another each day) it was all scraped on there and hard... made me never want to try it again. That was a little over a year ago and now I'm finding that I want to try it again for the health benefits. Did you just "get over" the scrubbing and scraping or am I missing something??? Thanks!!
I use the same glass jar day after day and never switch. I made my own starter with equal parts flour and water. removing 1/2 of the starter every 12 hours and feeding it equal parts flour and water...doing that for 4-5 days until my starter had established. After that you don't have to remove 1/2, but keep feeding it every 12 hours. I learned everything by signing up for the e-course membership on gnowfglins.com. It was great!
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