Starting Sourdough-A Success Story

Alright, lets be honest. I have never denied my extreme geekiness, but this may have taken it to a new level. As any proud mother would brag about her children, I have may have shared a little too much excitement over my wild yeast seed culture. (Note to self: Do not mention your wild yeast seed culture at work or in any social function.) My poor co-workers.

This is not for amateurs. Starting a seed culture definitely falls into the realm of weird science (think eccentric 10th grade science teacher). However, if you dig that sort of thing, then this might be right up your alley.

In this post, which may turn out to be quite lengthy, you will find out how to create and maintain a wild yeast culture that will eventually be made into sourdough mother starter.

It all started on 8/1/11 with a little pineapple juice and flour. I was sure that it was doomed to fail, but after many, many days of faithful feeding and watering, I am now a proud mother of one delicious seed culture.

Recipe for your seed culture:
Step one:
2T pineapple juice
2T bread flour
Mix the flour and juice together, cover and let stand at room temperature until the next day when you will repeat step one. Repeat this for four-6 more days until your culture is bubbling with gas.

On day 7 measure out 1/2 C of the seed culture and mix it with 3 oz of bread flour, 2 T of water. Discard the rest or save it or give it away. Cover and leave this mixture sit until it begins to rise and doubles in size. If it does not become active leave it for another day or so, it should begin to show sign of life. Continue feeding your culture 1-2 T of flour each day along with a little water. I have continued to feed my starter daily, it did not start to rise and expand as it should unitl 15 days or so later. When this happens your seed culture is mature and you can move on to creating a Mother Starter.

I also admit to being gone two weekends in a row and did not feed to those two weekends. I placed it in the refrigerator on those weekends hoping to save all my love and hard work. It worked!

Mmm, fermentation!

**Toubleshooting: There are some things that can go wrong with your seed culture causing it to die.
1.Use only filtered or unchlorinated water. The chlorination can damage the delicate wild yeasts rendering them disabled.
2. If your mixture contains too much liquid (as mine did) it will not expand as the gas will just push to the top of the mixture and form bubbles; instead of pushing the flour mixture up and out. Mix more flour in with the next feeding or omit the water for a few feedings.
3. If by day 6 or 7 you do not see any more bubbling or activity you may want to give it a boost of acid by feeding it 1T of apple cider vinegar instead of plain water.
4. Lots of liquid? I had a problem with lots of brownish liquid forming on the top of my mixture. I chalked it up to the mixture containing too much liquid. I omitted the water for several feedings which seemed to do the trick. 

Why pineapple juice? Pineapple juice is quite acidic which is just the right PH level for the wild yeasts to become active. The sugar from the juice probably helps the yeasts too. I have not heard of any other types of juice being used, but you can always experiment!

On to the Mother starter:

This will be the dough that you will base all of your sourdough breads off of.  It can be kept in the fridge for several weeks without feedings or refreshing, but it will need some refreshing if not used after 5 days of being created. Recipe for Mother Starter is from Peter Reinhart's-"Artisan Breads Every Day"

2 3/4 C (12 oz) whole wheat flour/whole rye flour/bread flour
1 C (9 oz) of spring or filtered water
3/4 C (4 oz) mature seed culture

Combine ingredients and stir until combined. Knead for 2 minutes until it is smooth. Shape in a ball and place in a clean lightly oiled bowl and cover loosely. The container should be larger enough to hold the dough once it has expanded and doubled.  Leave out a room temp until it has doubled in size, 4-10 hours. I left mine out overnight. When it has doubled in size, take it out of the container and knead it a few times to let out the gas. Return it to a smaller bowl if you wish as it will be housed in the refrigerator from now on. Cover the bowl tightly and vent any gas build up in the container after a few hours.  Yay! You now have your Mother Starter!

To refresh the starter repeat the recipe for the mother starter by using 3/4 C (4 oz) of the old mother starter.

Sourdough bread recipe in next post.

 

Wisconsin State Fair-Proud Owner of the Cheese Curd.

The Wisconsin State Fair will always have a special place in my heart, nestling cozily into one of my coronary arteries. One could argue as, states fairs go, the Wisconsin Fair doesn't try to impress expert state fair goers with ridiculous deep fried fare. I will admit the deep fried Reeses Peanut Butter Cup in a Banana Batter caught my eye, but I passed it up for the #1 coronary killer. Not deep fried butter on a stick, I refuse to acknowledge that as something that would ever pass the lips of anyone with an appetite. No, I am talking about my old friends, fried cheese curds. These succulent savory little morsels of joy are absolutely delightful. I have friends form the East Coast who step off the plane in Wisco and head for the nearest fried cheese curd vendor.

What are cheese curds? They are the fresh un-aged cheese that separates from the whey (water) in the cheese making process. Milk is heated, an acid is added and voila, curd. Curds are pressed into blocks and wheels to make what many people call, cheese.  The cheeses are aged and will occasionally be inoculated with bacteria and live out their lives in cool underground caves until they arrive at your table in all of their proud cheesy glory. How does one know so much about cheese you say? One does not live in the premier dairy state without learning a thing or two about cheese. I am also thinking about attempting my hand at the cheese making process.

We are serious about our dairy. The cream puff line, which I didn't even attempt, was 3 blocks long. The morning's event of the day was the infamous cheese carving contest. This sculpture block weighs 1 ton and took first place.

Another first place winner is a pretty pricey wheel O'Gouda....

Cheese isn't the only thing were into here in the upper Midwest. Move over Vermont, we have the market cornered on Maple syrup. The pristine north woods offers millions of acres of tapped woods. Producing liquid gold. 

 

Glad we braved the crowds on the last day of the fair. I'm still proud to be from Wisconsin even with the current administration.

Election Night Pizzas Photo Entry

Some of you may know about the battle my fair state endured back in February, March, and April, about the Gov. Scott Walker unveiling a controversial budget and stripping unions of their collective bargaining rights.

Well, to make a long story short, it resulted in 6 recall elections of State senators. It was pretty neat to see the whole process take place. To celebrate we made pizzas on the grill. A first ever attempt on my part. I used our charcoal grill with lots of coals and set a pizza stone on top of the grate. A little ground corn to slide the pizza off the peel and we were in business. I made a pesto beet and goat cheese pizza and a traditional one of tomato sauce, cheese and sausage. They were pretty great, if I do say so myself.

Homemade Sauce. Super easy, pureed tomatoes and herbs.

Hot Italian Sausage.

Rising.

Home made garlic scape pesto.

S'mores Tart

There is nothing I crave more than the ooey gooey s'mores in the heat of the summer. I recently created a small fire pit on our backyard (don't tell the fire marshal) for the purposes of making these tempting little nuggets of taste.  I wanted to create something as good in the kitchen that was about 1/2 the mess while eating.

It count be that hard right? There are literally three ingredients to a s'more, right? If you are miking the backyard fire pit kind then, yes. If you are making an adult version, then no no no.

To start out you need a base or crust. I made mine in a 10" tart pan so I used two packages of gram crackers pulsed in the food processor until a fine crumb. I added enough melted butter (2 sticks or so) to moisten the cracker crumbs thoroughly. NOTE: Don't skimp on the butter, period. If you do not add enough fat your crust will crumble into dust if you bat an eye at it. When making this you should error on the side of too much butter. Melt a bunch of it and keep adding until the crumbs look wet and saturated. I then add about a quarter cup of plain sugar, you could add brown if you'd like. Press into the vessel of your choice. It must be a pie plate or tart pan of some sort. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. I eyeball it every few minutes until I think its browned a bit.

Next comes the adult part. Instead of milk chocolate I use fine dark chocolate. Heat 2/3 of a cup of heavy cream in a small sauce pan until it just begins to boil. Do it slowly so it doesn't scorch. Chop chocolate if needed. You will need 2 C and place in a med bowl. When the cream is simmering, pour it over the chopped chocolate bits and let sit for a few moments. Then begin whisking your heart out while thinking of how impressed your friends will with this gorgeous tart. This my friends is call ganache. Keep whisking well after all the chocolate has melted into the cream as the more you whisk the shinier your ganache will be. 10 min total should be plenty. Pour into your crust.

Now for the final ingredient, the marshmallows.I used up the giant over sized camping ones I had sitting in my cupboard and they worked okay, but they were hard to cut through. I might try mini marshmallows next time. If you had one of those nifty kitchen torches you might use it, but I had just as much success placing it under a hot broiler for 90 seconds.

Voila!