Now, I know y’all have seen sourdough and making sourdough starters on TikTok or Facebook Reels or whatever social media platform you use.
Well, it gave me life and motivation. My shoe-chef (apparently slang for a bad cook) self decided to give it a try.
What is “it” might you ask?
I really wanted to dive right in and make sourdough bread…and pancakes…and muffins…and the list goes on. I was missing one thing. It may just be a little important.
I didn’t have a starter 😦
I’m an immediate gratification kind of gal, but for some reason, taking a week+ to make something else to get to my end goal of bread and other baked yummies energized me. I set out on a basic internet search to figure out how to make a sourdough starter and I landed on Farmhouse on Boone’s How to Make a Sourdough Starter. It seemed easy enough, and really, I have a hard time using all the flour in my pantry as it is.
I wish I would have taken a picture of the first few days, because I really felt truly ridiculous. I was keeping an open bowl full of water and flour on my counter and then giving it more flour and water every day. By day 3, I was getting a little discouraged, but I kept going.
Day 4 is when I really started to feel a little better. I had my first bubbly yield and I felt reinvigorated. I also realized that I needed to start adding a touch more flour than water, and from then it was easy. I started feeding my starter twice a day (once when I woke up and before I went to bed) and started getting my first “rise” of my starter around day 9.
Coincidentally, my rise came when I changed my flour. Originally, I was using unbleached all purpose flour. It was doing okay. It was bubbling, but it never increased in size. Once I changed to bleached all purpose flour, I started seeing my starter increase in size. It was definitely more encouraging. It also helped that I started keeping my jar in the oven with the light on (I’ve only forgotten to take it out of the oven once before turning it on. I count that as a win).
It’s important to note that the temperature of your house or wherever is pretty important to getting a rise out of your starter. We keep our house at 62 F during the day, so I keep my starter in the oven to give it a little warmth and comfort.
I started actually using my starter the other day. I decided I wanted to make sourdough discard pancakes. I can’t remember exactly what recipe I used, but I do remember it was fairly simple. I used roughly 3/4 of a cup of my starter and counted that as my discard for the morning. Once I pulled that discard out, I just fed my starter as normal and forgot about it.
The finished product was so yummy. It’s toddler approved and really didn’t take that long. Even my husband (who has raised his eyebrow at the thought of eating fermented pancakes) enjoyed them and said he would eat them again. I call that a win.
I also decided to try my hand at discard blueberry muffins. I had all of the stuff in my pantry, and for some reason I still had the mental block for bread. I really didn’t want to deal with the disappointment of my bread not rising, okay?!
The recipe I chose was from Little Spoon Farms. The recipe says it takes ~50 minutes between prep and cooking times. It took me well over an hour. It also said the yield was 12 muffins. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I could have gotten 24 “normal size” muffins out of this and it would have been just fine. I don’t love the spill over the top muffins that resemble how I look in my pre-pregnancy jeans, but if that’s your jam, then go for it.
To me, these were just okay. In my opinion, I didn’t think they were worth the effort. The dough when made as written was stiffer than bread dough and even me getting my hands in there to mix was way too difficult. Luckily, the recipe did say to add some water or milk to thin it out, so they knew it was a possibility. I just wish they would have incorporated it already. Would have saved me a lot of headache.
They tasted fine – better than fine actually, and I had 3 in my first sitting. I decided to put the rest in the fridge and have them again in the morning. I nuked them in the microwave this morning for about 45 seconds. I made one for my kiddo, and then my husband and I split three between the two of us. These things were dry as hell this morning and I really was bummed. Kiddo seemed to like them, but she’s a food-motivated baby. What does she really know about “fine” sourdough dining? Lol
Overall, my confidence with sourdough is blooming. I’ve got some sourdough sandwich loaves in the oven and I can’t wait to tell you how they turned out!
The Mediocre Homemaker 