Sourdough Bread

Friends can change your life
So one day Sara went up to Denver to visit her High School friend Michelle.  While there, she was given a portion of her sourdough starter and a super easy recipe to make sourdough bread.  That bread has richly blessed our lives.  Now we have wheat bread, French bread, rolls, and sourdough bread that taste divine.  I never thought there would be a day I would no longer buy bread from a store, but that day has finally come. Thanks Michelle, you have changed our lives for the better. 
Ingredients

For the Starter:
  • 1/3 rounded cup of unbleached all purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup of room temperature water

For the Bread:
  • 150 g starter
  • 10g salt (ancient kosher sea salt)
  • 300 g warm distilled water
  • 24 g honey
  • 450 g unbleached all purpose flour
  • Parchment Paper
  • One Dutch oven
Directions
  1. Name your Starter (if you have already done this, skip to Feed Your Starter)
    1. ​Michelle's starter is named Goldie.  Our is Goldie Hawn. She has since given birth to Goldie Locks. And so the legacy continues.
Feed the Starter
  1. Add the flour to the starter, then the room temperature water.  Mix it together with your spatula.
    1. If there is a grey water on it, just pour that off before you start.
    2. Once the starter leaves the jar, never put it back.  Also, make sure you don't put any metal in the starter.  Keep the starter sacred.
  2. Put a paper towel on top and secure with a rubber band. 
  3. Put another rubber band on the jar to mark where the starter was before it got all big and poofy. 
  4. Let ir rise for 3-4 hours. 
Making the Dough
  1. Get out your scale and put a glass bowl on it, then zero the scale.
  2. Add 150 g of starter to the bowl, then zero the scale
    1. If you add too much, just throw that extra away, don't put it back in the mother dough jar!
  3. Add 10 g of salt, then zero the scale
  4. Add 300 g of lukewarm distilled water, then mix it a bit, and zero the scale
  5. Add 24 g of honey, then zero the scale
  6. Add 450 g of unbleached all purpose flour (we like organic King Arthur unbleached flour).
  7. Mix it all together with a Danish dough whisk.
    1. Not sure why it works so well, but this odd fellow is a must have.
  8. Put a lid on top and leave it to rise in the bowl for 10-12 hours.
    1. We typically do this at night, so we can make it the next morning, but some people might do it in the morning and make it that night. Whatever works in your life is what matters, don't let me tell you when to make your bread!
Making the Bread
  1. ​After it has risen, take the dough and stretch it into a ball and roll it in a light bed of unbleached flour (it will be really sticky, so you need that flour or it will never come off your counter). 
  2. Once the top is smooth, lay it on parchment paper and put the bowl on top of it.
  3. Let it rise for 1 more hour. 
  4. When the hour is just about up, preheat your oven to 400 degrees with your Dutch over in the over. 
  5. Once its preheated, take the Dutch oven out, being oh so careful, then place the parchment paper with the sourdough on it in the Dutch oven.
    1. Be careful not to touch the sides....oh it burns!
    2. You can make little designs on the top if you want at this time.
  6. Using your oven mitts, put the lid back on and put the whole thing back in the oven and bake for 40 minutes. 
  7. Once done, take it out of the Dutch oven and place it on a cooling rack letting it rest for one hour before current it and eating it....good luck with that. 
The Sourdough Parable
by Michael Wilhelm

There was a woman who wished to bake sourdough bread to feed her family. She acquired a small lump of starter—a living mixture of flour and water passed down from a friend—and brought it home with joy. 
But with the busyness of life, she forgot to feed it.
Each day, the starter sat unfed and neglected as she tended to other things. Soon, it became sluggish, then sour in a way that was not good, and finally it stopped rising altogether. When she tried to bake with it, the bread was flat and hard, and no one wanted a second bite—not even her.
So she began again.
This time, she rose early to feed the starter with care, giving it flour and water daily, watching as it bubbled with life. It grew strong, alive, and full of power to leaven a whole batch of dough. Only then did she divide it, giving portions to others who wished to bake their own loaves.
And so, from a small jar in her kitchen, many were fed.
The Mother Dough
Some people are really, really fanatical about their sourdough and their starter. Charles Boyle plays this out perfectly on Brooklyn 99. Definitely a favorite of ours through the years.  

Charles: No, that's the Boyle family sourdough starter. It's fed us for 140 years. The bread it births is succulent and firm. Tang for days.
Gina: I hate so many of the words you just used.