I have 3/4 of a disappointing loaf to eat before I try again.
I’m going to get the starter going outside of the fridge for a couple of days before I “harvest” it for the dough. Also making sure the dough isn’t too wet; it was pretty runny these last two times.
I let it rise in my oven, with the door held open with a towel so the internal bulb warms up the interior.
We were out of bread and plain flour for about 2 weeks, so were making biscuits and cakes with the remains of a self-raising flour bag. Then we ran out of that so were making baked mochi cakes with rice flour and then we were out of that so it was down to the cornmeal. 25lb of plain flour arrived from an online source today so we are back in action. I didn’t try the restaurant suppliers but will next time.
Target has the enameled ones (labeled “Crock Pot”), $65 for a 7 qt., though (when I looked) a blue one was less than that, for some reason. More than a Lodge but about 1/5 the cost of Le Creuset.
I can confirm that the bread gets better! My husband has been a sourdough baking maniac. Now I get fresh loaves and crackers all the time. He can’t make them fast enough. The dutch oven helped tremendously. Also try basting it in water before baking. I can’t believe how much butter our family goes through every week now.
A friend of mine observed
“Sourdough Starter is the Tamagotchi for the Middle-Aged”.
I’ve been baking my own sourdough for years now. Since I prefer Pan loaves (so they fit in the toaster) they are not so visually impressive.
Just this week I made Golden Brown Sour Rye. You mix half a pound of rye flour with six tablespoons of sugar/honey/golden syrup/molasses and a pint of warm water and leave it six hours to sour. After that you just mix in more flour and a tablespoon of salt. (No oil, for a wonder!) Leave to rise a second time and bake for an hour and a half. If it goes properly it smells like a brewery and tastes wonderful.
My sister-in-law has caught the bug and is now baking bread for Facebook, as well. The funny thing about that is that she previously claimed gluten allergies and intolerances, but I guess those went away when something better came along.
Very nice find on the cast iron. I don’t fry or bake usually but i have wanted a nice vintage cast iron for a while, i do have an ok one that’s enamel coated… i think it’s a food network one i got for a bargain years ago. I don’t love it but it works, i mainly got it to bake bread in it and i’ve never gotten around to it
No judgement on your SIL, but a family member is on a restricted diet right now. Pure sourdough bread* is permitted, but anything with yeast is out. Our bodies are weird.
Of course. “Commercial quick yeast” and yeasted anything is out. But the slow fermentation of sourdough is fine for this diet. Our own starter is pre-pandemic, and a portion is being dried now to share with distant relatives.
i’ll be moving to a new place within the next week or so, for the time being we’ve been putting off starting any new projects but my roommate has mentioned she’d like to try baking soon. I did tell her there are plenty of no-knead recipes she can try, but if needed i do have a nice kitchen stand mixer. I haven’t looked for flour where i’m at since we haven’t needed any but hopefully we can find something
It’s actually a known phenomenon, that sourdough breaks down the gluten in a way that makes it a lot easier for people to digest, rather than yeast-based breads.
My plain old Lodge was put into the oven on a cleaning cycle (my own fault for leaving it in there and not giving instructions to check inside the oven before starting the cleaning). It smoked for hours. And the seasoning was completely removed. Once I scrubbed the rusty spots off, I was able to bring it back up to normal. I think something nicer, like an enable pan, would have been completely ruined.
Yeah I got that Le Creuset years ago on super closeout sale, probably because it’s a funky beige color. I’m certainly not going to pony up the $200+ to replace it. My cast iron Lodge dutch oven ($25 from Target, pretty sure someone mis-tagged the price on it) is perfectly fine and I can thrash the Le Creuset for bread baking.
