Adventures In Sourdough...

I adore eating bread and while it may not adore me back, because of the pounds I pack on just looking at it, I make it anyway every so often.  This all changed a week ago when I embarked on making my own Sourdough Starter.  Now I'm baking bread every day, sometimes twice.  I guess I really do live in San Francisco after all and can officially call this my home now that I am baking it's signature bread.  I've lived here for almost fifteen years, but now I think I really belong here.  LOL.  I guess I'm storing up for the winter, or something like that.

Just the smell of freshly baked bread has got to be one of the most luxurious things in life.  I plan on doing various bread installments on my blog because this sourdough starter is gifting us over and over and I have some amazing recipe ideas using different flours, herbs and aromatics.  Just please don't ask me for a gluten-free version.  I don't have one.  I'm sure it exists, I just have not gone there, yet.  I'm pretty sure my kitchen is made of wild yeasts and gluten at the moment.  The basic go-to recipe for the last few loaves of sourdough I have made is as follows:

Basic Sourdough Recipe
3 1/2 Cups+ Unbleached Bread Flour
1 Cup Sourdough Starter (I made my own in this case and feed it twice a day a combination of whole grain wheat, dark rye and white wheat flours)
3/4 Cup Warm Water
2 teaspoons Sea Salt
1 teaspoon Sugar

Each loaf gets prettier and tastier!  I am very excited about this new skill.  Stay tuned for stories, tips and more recipes!  Happy Baking!

Fourth Loaf, used starter and basic recipe (see above) baked in deep glass pie dish and made pretty design, SUCCESS

Third loaf, used starter only added Garlic and Italian Herbs, cooked it in a deep pie dish, SUCCESS and getting prettier

Second Loaf, not as pretty as I was going for but used starter only and waited 4 hours for a rise, SUCCESS, Delicious

First Loaf, I added my lovely starter and commercial yeast out of impatience (big mistake) tasted just like beer, FAIL