1 shredded apple with skin, bread flour, water

STARTER RECIPE CLICK HERE

NOTE: This post will be continuously updated because my sourdough starter is on Stage 2 and I’ll bake the bread this weekend. I’m not posting a recipe because I’m sharing the link to the recipes, but I’ll talk about my own experience working with these recipes. Usually when I set on a quest to test a baking recipe I tend to go all in, just as I did with the Ciabatta post.

I read cookbook recipes, blog posts, youtube videos, and then kept doing it back and forth. It always is a fun adventure.I haven’t really lost this ‘baking science research’ interest, but due to current world mood, I didn’t feel like going on such quests.

Instead I’m baking or cooking because, yes I need to eat, but mainly because I wanted to focus on something else besides job hunting, writing, getting my steps for the day, and duolingo. Baking this sourdough bread will be keep me distracted, but not too much since it doesn’t take much effort, but it takes time and patience.

The starter going half way and will continue to update this post as I go, I might fail or I might succeed, either way I shall bake the results and eat them one way or another, because in this house we do not waste food that is edible. Oh yes, I was let go from work so that’s why I’m job hunting, wish me luck.

Photos and description of what I have so far, also links to the recipes I’m using from Paul Hollywood because I love that man on The Great British Bake Show.

Let me be clear, this might really not work, I’m about to publish this post and my second stage starter is looking rather not well. I changed containers, I stirred in some strange liquid last night (today is day number 2 for second stage of the starter) last night I saw bubbles, but some strange liquid and I freaked out and stirred it all and changed to a new container and new plastic wrap. I read on King Arthur’s website that apparently this liquid can be discarded or stirred, so hopefully I haven’t ruined it.

Here are the photos of the steps I’ve taken so far:1 photo (above) is the shredded apple, then water with bread flour.

STAGE 1: ugly mess, mixed with a fork

Covered with plastic wrap, rubber band, and plastic lid – Marked with sharpie to show its growth

STAGE 2: 3 Days Later this is how it looks – I discarded (made pancakes with the waste, and fed it again)

Ready to sleep 2 days more

PHOTO MISSING
I should have taken a photo of how ugly it looked when ready to STAGE 3, there was a weird darker liquid on top, I discarded it, and discarded 1/2 a cup of the starter and fed it 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, I can’t explain why, I figured it will help it smell better when baking it, but I’m not sure if it will work.

It’s supposed to be STAGE 3, but it didn’t look amazing, this is what I did some more feeding to see if I could bring it back to life. At this point I realize if I do this again and it doesn’t work, I’ll just use the starter and sprinkle yeast when baking a sourdough bread, because I am not throwing all this flour to the trash, unless it goes bad of course, I don’t want to die because of saving flour T___T

I saw small bubbles in the starter so decided I’ll bake a sourdough loaf today, not whole wheat, but regular, replacing 1 oz of bread flour with ground flax seed, because my doctor says fiber is what I need. It’s obviously not much, but the next sourdough I’ll test (probably Thursday) I’ll make sure it’s 50/50 whole wheat. Here’s Paul Hollywood’s recipe (click here)

I know this doesn’t count as workout, but gosh. Kneading this for 10 minutes straight got my arms a bit sore. Maybe I should bake sourdough bread every day. I added all the water in the recipe and sprinkled some more because I added 1 tablespoon of chia seeds. Yes, I’m obsessed with fiber and texture. Chia seeds absorb liquid and because of texture was ripping up the dough when I was kneading that’s why I ended up adding around 2 more tablespoons of water to the dough.

I suggest adding the chia seeds along with the ground flaxseed. I had to work more with the kneading because I decided after I started kneading the dough that I wanted to add the chia seeds.

Inside this oiled bowl. We’ll see how much it grows. Recipe says wait 5 hours or until double in size. The house is around 68F so who knows. I set the timer at 4 hours and we shall see.

Wrapping it with plastic and placing the bowl in the warmest room in this house, hopefully it will reach closer to 70F once the sun stops being lazy. I’ll be back in 4-5 hours.

Almost 8 hours and still looks like this. I warmed up the kitchen and still. For now I wrapped it with plastic again and placed in the fridge and we’ll see how it looks tomorrow.My plan is to take it out and let it seat outside 2-4 hours hopefully it’ll grow more and then bake it.

—–

UPDATE MAY 7TH

I guess being unemployed and dealing with this whole Covid-19 quarantine situation left me a little be uninspired. To the point that I think I ruined my starter. I did bake with it twice, the first time was awful, the second one just a bit cheesy which I read it isn’t good and maybe my starter was possessed.

I didn’t do any of the good things a food blogger is supposed to do during recipe testing, but let’s face it if you’re here reading this post it isn’t because you are planning to make a sourdough bread, but just out of curiosity and see my silly failure, which I’m totally ok with because life is too short so laugh away.

Yes, we ate most of the bread. I did pancakes twice and I won’t be doing sourdough bread nor starters for a long time now.

Now below are photos I’m rescuing from my phone, and then I’ll finish the sourdough starter waste pancake recipe, because two reasons: the recipe works even with my shitty starter annnnnnd I took the photos so I’m posting them.

Have you lost your marbles yet?

—

REST OF THE PHOTOS:

It wasn’t rising, so I sprayed some water and yeast, yes I cheated the whole purpose for sourdough starter in the first place, but here we are.

It didn’t get much better, but I was done so I baked this monster.

The most embarrassing bread I’ve ever made, but like I said, here we are.

Just plain awful, but we were hungry so I toasted it with butter and ate most of it.

It was so dense you could use this terrible sourdough bread as a weapon.

This was a different day, same starter, used yeast from the beginning because a girl has no time for this nonsense, I already knew my starter was weirdly cheesy so I needed to kill the rest of it therefore I baked these loaves and made pancakes, again. PS. Life is too short to gain weight with this terrible bread. Don’t follow my steps.

I must admit, they didn’t look terrible.

I don’t even know what to tell you, this is the last of the bread. They look so innocent.

This is the last of my sourdough adventure in 2020. It was like one of those ride at carnivals that you think they might be fun, but then you just get bruises and smelly people sitting next to you, so you scream and scream, but the person next to you ignores you because they don’t know you. You rode the stupid roller-coaster because now you can say, yes, I went to this carnival and tried that ride.

The thing is I’ve baked sourdough before, at a restaurant with actually starters and recipes already tested by actual bakers and not this nonsense I wanted to try from scratch while juggling tons job applications, navigating setting up my unemployment process.

There’s no regrets though, the days I was stressing out with this stupid starter, but this idiotic bread, those days I finally didn’t cry during this pandemic. What are YOU doing to stay sane these days?

¡a comer! Anything, but JC’s sourdough.

1.  Read, Read and Re-Read your recipe

I’ve always loved bread, with butter, or queso fresco, coffee, tea or my favorite hot cocoa in winter and cold milk in summer.

While living in Panama I can still remember my dad going to the “Panadería del Chinito” (bakery run by Chinese), and buying “viril” some sort of Baguette.  And I always took for granted that bread should be warm because my dad would wait for the ones coming out of the oven and that bread will be cool enough to slice while mom served breakfast.

2.  Work & Clean, Work & Clean

I always assumed that’s how everyone had their bread, my mom never liked Pullman style bread or “pan cuadrado” (squared bread) so unless I’m making french toast or “dieting” you won’t see that bread in my kitchen either.

Learning how to deal with bread at this restaurant has been an amazing experience, the Chef I work with, he has an incredible relationship with bread, he makes it look almost as baking was cooking, not an exact science, of course he measures and weighs everything, but it is different indeed, I will write another day about my bread baking days with him.

3.  If using expensive ingredients make sure you will use what’s left in another recipe or give it away (fresh herbs are so expensive!)

Chef lent me 2 Bread Baking Books, one is the Peter Reinheart “The Baker’s Apprentice” and the other is one is by Hamelman “Bread”, as a reference I’ve also used the Baking with Julia Childs book and I did a Finnish Pulla that was amazing (if you are a cardamon fan).

The same day I made the whoopie pies I made this bread because when I work on a project I like to do several things which is not too smart because then you are just dead tired.

4.  Trust the recipe, this bread was way too heavy because I didn’t trust the recipe and added too much flour.

I made the Poolish around 8 in the morning and baked the bread during the night and I swear if I was thin enough I would just keep doing this everyday but then I’m trying to watch my diet (so difficult cooking and testing recipes and trying to lose weight).

I bought Pillsbury Bread Flour, dry active yeast and spring water for the poolish.

Also I’m ashamed to say that I’ve killed my starter and I’m very sad about that because that was the first thing Chef gave me, but coming after work I havenâ€t been cooking at home and all I do is smoke and complain I should work out and that I miss having internet at home (I blog from coffee shops). I haven’t even worked out in ages, but let’s keep the topic about the Potato-Rosemary bread.

5.  Like Julia said, never apologize, keep your head up and show your food around, how many people bake their own bread anyways, right?

I used the recipe just as the books says except for some changes, I replaced a lot of the water quantity because instead of smashing the potatoes I blended them with butter and eggs, the dough looks very, very watery and I got scared so I split in half and I used one just watery like it looked, the other one I added more flour until it looked a little firmer.

The thing about being tired while baking is that you make mistakes or you just donâ€t see the light, and you are tired and you want to clean the mess (at least I was a little messy, when I’m tired I’m a disaster you can ask my boy).

I won’t post the recipe yet until I try this recipe again, but will share the Book information so you also feel free to try Bread Baking at home, trust me, once you bake your own bread you won’t be able to go back to the crap you see at stores.

And with that note I will appreciate if anyone has a recommendation of an amazing Bakery nearby DC area, and the furthest I will dare to drive will be Philadelphia (if it is an “out of this world” type of bread, I’ll do it!)

6.  Don’t be afraid and let other people taste it, the texture may have not worked, maybe the flavor was good?, but feedback is always great and you learn to repeat something good and avoid what didn’t work!

For more baking tips Follow Me here —> Little Lady Cook on Facebook

¡a comer!