Renee Roberts (Renee@cup.portal.com) asks:
> I would like to find a good SOUR sourdough starter, like Columbo
> extra sour bread. Anyone know how to make/buy starter?
In "The Best Bread Machine Cookbook Ever", Madge Rosenberg says:
This is an ingredient to keep on hand so you can make sourdough bread
anytime: Mix 1 cup of flour with 1 cup of water and a pinch of yeast.
Stir until creamy. Leave the mixture alone for a week in a large
glass or plastic container, unrefrigerated. It is a living culture
that bubbles and smells weird [sure does! -JJ]. The different strains
of yeast in the atmosphere work on it. Sours made from the same
ingredients vary from place to place because of the ambient conditions.
No one has made San Francisco sourdough in the Midwest yet, although
commercial bakeries have tried.
At least once a week, use your starter or discard 1/2 cup of it, and
be sure to replenish it with equal amounts of flour and water stirred
together until they are smooth and creamy. This keeps the starter
fresh and active. After the initial week, you can store the starter
in the refrigerator, but bring it up to room temperature for baking
by making the water in the recipe just warmer than body temperature
and mixing the two together before they go in the bread machine.
A very large number of the recipes in this book use sourdough, but I have
not yet made any of them. So I'll post a non-sourdough recipe which I
made and found excellent:
Soutine's Rosemary Wheat Bread (Soutine's is Madge's bakery)
Ingredient Small (1 lb) Loaf Large (1 1/2 lb) Loaf
active dry yeast 1 1/2 tsp 2 1/2 tsp
bread flour 1/2 cup 3/4 cup
whole wheat flour 1 3/4 cup 2 2/3 cup
wheat bran 2 tbsp 3 tbsp
dried rosemary 2 tsp 1 tbsp
salt 1 tsp 1 1/2 tsp
vegetable oil 3 tbsp 1/4 cup
honey 3 tbsp 1/4 cup
water 3/4 cup 1 cup + 2 tbsp
Enjoy!
- JJ Larrea (jjl@panix.com)