Not TOO Sweet Granola

Ready to go into the oven

I’ve tried a lot of granola recipes over the years, and rejected my fair share as well. Granola is supposed to be healthy and good for you. So recipes that call for tons of sugar and fat just don’t cut it, in my book. I once saw a recipe that called for a cup of oil. A CUP. Well of course it tasted good. It was practically deep-fried! I’ve also tried recipes made with just fruit juice to cut down on the sweetness, and those were not sweet enough. It’s hard to find just the right balance.

Most recently, my “go to” recipe for granola is based on the one by Alton Brown, with the sweetness cut down by about one-third. I love this recipe, not only because it is easy (no heating up of the syrup mixture before mixing it with the oats) but because I can play with the ingredients and still come out with something fabulous.

 

Don't you wish you had smellovision?

Easy Adaptable Granola

6 Servings (or a lot more if you just put a couple of tablespoons on your yogurt in the morning)

• 3 cups rolled oats (I like the thick cut – best not to use instant unless that’s all you have.)
• 2 cups nuts and seeds of choice (I generally do one cup silvered almonds, and one cup mixed other nuts and seeds. The batch pictured has sunflower, pumpkin, flax and sesame. Peanuts work well too. The smaller the seed, the more likely it will just end up at the bottom of the container and not stick well to the oats – amaranth…not so much.)
• 3/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut (if you really dislike coconut, you could probably leave this out. I use unsweetened because I’m trying to cut down on the sugar. Sweetened would be OK too.)
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar (original recipe called for 1/8 cup additional. Light brown would be OK too. I prefer the stronger taste of molasses in the dark brown.)
• 1/4 cup maple syrup (original recipe called for 1/8 cup additional. I’ve also successfully substituted agave nectar, sorghum – bought on vacation, and honey. I’m sure brown rice syrup would also work – any liquid sweetener, really. Did you know you can buy maple syrup in bulk at most natural food stores, usually for a lot less than prebottled syrup? And the Grade B syrup you get in bulk has a more pronounced maple flavor, which I prefer.)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil (canola – organic if you can afford it, is neutral in flavor and heart healthy. Have a nut oil you bought for a salad dressing recipe and are trying to use up? Use it here. Walnut would be lovely.)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt (I have no health issues around salt. Cut back if you do, or if any of your nuts/seeds are already salted.)
• Up to 1 tsp spices of your choice (cinnamon, nutmeg etc.)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine the oats, nuts, coconut, and brown sugar.

In a separate small bowl, combine maple syrup, oil, and salt. Add maple mixture to oat mixture, mix well and pour onto a sheet pan. Bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes, stirring every 30 minutes to ensure even toasting.

I've recently really been loving this combination with fresh sliced oranges. Kind of "creamsicle for breakfast"

Note that the original recipe calls for two sheet pans and stirring every 15 minutes for slightly less time. I find this to be too much fuss. One pan and a little longer baking works just fine.

Remove from oven and transfer into a large bowl. Add 1 cup dried fruit if desired. Can easily be doubled. Store in an air tight container once cool.

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2011, where we’re miles away from sticky sweet granola, but still trying to get the flax seeds out of our teeth.

Bread Making 201

My mother's 1972 printing of the Joy of Cooking, opened to the page on Yeast Breads. This book literally taught me the basics of cooking. It's a long story as to why I wasn't taught by the parental units in my life, but thankfully, I've always been able to learn by reading! Not quite sure where the grease stain came from.

I’ve been baking bread since my early 20′s. One of my first attempts was a bagel recipe found on the back of the yeast packet. (I had no idea what I was getting into, but reading the bread section of The Joy of Cooking helped. My work mates scarfed them up like they had not been fed for days, but none of us were particularly picky at that age.) Being a small woman without a lot of upper body strength or height, hand kneading dough was (and still is) difficult for me, and so I only made bread occasionally until the bread machine craze of the late 80′s/early 90′s.

After a year of loaves that were over or under risen when baked by my machine, I quit using the bake cycle and just used it to knead the dough. I eventually wore out the seal on the pan, and switched to a standing mixer with dough hook I had inherited from my father. I’ve probably made a loaf of bread a week for almost 20 years, along with rolls, pizza dough, pitas, hamburger buns and cinnamon rolls on occasion.

My tastes and nutritional awareness have changed over the years, and I now try to bake with predominately whole wheat flour (for a few years, I didn’t even buy white flour). You can follow your own heart on this one, but know that whole wheat flour is far superior in Iron, Calcium, Vitamin E, and Fiber, along with 13 other nutrients when compared to white flour. If you must use white flour, at least buy it unbleached – the less benzoyl peroxide or clorine gas chemicals used on the plantet the better, seems to me).

Now I’m not here to teach you how to get started making bread. There are some great resources out there for that, both online and in print form. Most any good comprehensive cookbook will describe the basics. But I HAVE picked up a few tricks over the years, and developed a basic “go to” recipe for a loaf of bread that is infinitely adaptable. Much of this is an amalgamation of articles from Cooks Illustrated and shows on Alton Brown’s Good Eats. First the recipe, then some comments.

“Pound of Flour” Loaf – One Recipe, Many Options

• 10 oz (1 1/4 cup) warm (110 degree or less) water (or milk of any fat content)
• 5 oz white all-purpose flour
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup grain/seed mix (wheat germ, extra bran, cracked wheat, oats, sunflower seeds, multi grain cereal mix etc.), if desired
• enough whole wheat flour, that when added to grain/seed mixture above, equals 11 oz
• 2 tbsp wheat gluten
• 1 package (2 1/4 tsp) yeast
• scant 2 tsp salt
• 1 oz (1/8 cup or 2 tbsp) oil of choice or butter
• 1 oz (1/8 cup or 2 tbsp) sweetener of choice (honey, sugar, brown sugar, molasses, agave nectar)

Mix water and 5 oz white flour with yeast and stir with paddle attachment on mixer. Add the rest of the ingredients (sprinkle the gluten over the mix rather than dumping it in one place or it will clump up and take longer to incorporate), and stir until just mixed. Remove paddle attachment, cover with a towel, and let stand for 20 minutes. Attach dough hook and knead on medium speed for about 5 minutes. Dough should pull away from the sides of the mixer (or maybe climb up the dough hook) but hold together. Remove dough hook, pat into a ball, cover with damp towel, and let rise until double in size, anywhere from an hour to 1 1/2 hour, depending on your room temperature (why get an additional bowl dirty if you don’t have to). Punch down dough, scrape out of bowl, and knead briefly on a counter top, removing air and forming into a loaf shape. Place loaf into greased bread pan (cooking spray is great here), cover with damp towel, and let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes. When loaf is almost to desired size, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake loaf for 45 minutes. Turn out from loaf pan onto wire cooling rack to cool.

Notes:

• Why is this recipe by weight rather than by volume? When I recently measured a cup each of whole wheat and white flours using a couple of different methods, my weights varied by more than 1/2 oz. (5 3/8 to 6 oz for whole wheat and 4 3/4 to 5 3/8 for white). Weight will also vary by humidity level. 1/2 oz may not seem like much, but when you consider that most bread recipes have 3 or more cups of flour in them, that difference adds up. Measuring by weight makes for a much more consistent product loaf to loaf. If you want to make this recipe by volume instead, go with 1 cup of white flour and grains + whole wheat flour together to equal 2 cups, but know that you may need to adjust the flour or liquid amounts based on the texture of the dough.
• Michael Ruhlman’s book Ratio talks about the optimum bread radio being 3 parts liquid to 5 parts flour. This recipe comes close, as 10 oz liquid would equal 16.66 oz flour.  
• Don’t have a standing mixer. No reason why this won’t work the old fashioned way. Start with everything in a large bowl, and turn out onto a counter to knead. Generally, hand kneading calls for a 10 minute knead time. Go for it, and have the toned “big gun” arms to show for it.
• The wheat gluten helps add lift to the whole wheat flour, making for a lighter loaf. You can find it in natural food stores in bulk, or in most well stocked grocery stores where you find Bob’s Red Mill Products.
• You could make this recipe with all white flour or all whole wheat flour. The all white will give you a lighter but nutritionally inferior loaf (omit gluten), the all whole wheat will give you a denser loaf.
• The 20 minute rest after the initial mixing allows the flour to hydrate. This makes for a much better dough and avoids accidentally adding more liquid because the dough initially seems dry.
• Using milk in place of water makes for a finer crumb and softer loaf. I’m not quite sure why most every bread machine recipe I’ve ever seen called for non-fat dry milk (though this would up the protein content, which perhaps improved browning). No need to scald your milk, unless it is raw.
• Again, according to Cooks Illustrated, the water you use, if you are using water, does make a difference. Choose unclorinated water or filter your tap water if it is clorinated. Basically, if it doesn’t taste good straight, it won’t taste good in bread either.
• I love the addition of grains/seeds/nuts for taste and texture. Bob’s Red Mill makes a great 10 grain cereal that is wonderful added to a loaf, and most natural food stores offer a mixed grain cereal in bulk. If you add more than about 1/3 cup of these flavor boosters, you run the risk of the dough not holding together well. But feel free to play with the amounts and see what you like.
• Want to add larger nuts (like walnuts) and/or dried fruit (raisins, olives, dried cherries etc.)? Add them in the last few minutes of kneading time, and start with 1/4 to 1/3 cup.
• Fresh or dried herbs and spices can also be a nice addition to this loaf.
• Heart health wise, using an unsaturated fat like canola or olive oil is much better for you than using butter, but of course, you can’t beat butter for flavor. Yes, it’s not a lot when you consider individual slices, but you may be adding more on toast, so take all your fats into consideration. If using butter, be sure to melt it (is this not the best use for a microwave ever, other than warming up a cold cup of tea?).
• I prefer ”white” whole wheat flour when I can find it for a reasonable price (it was essential when I was cooking at 7,000 feet, giving a much better risen loaf). King Arthur Flour makes one that I believe is nationally distributed – check your local grocery. White Whole Wheat is still 100% whole wheat, with the same nutritional profile, but made from a hard white spring wheat, which has a lighter taste. Great for converting the “I don’t like the taste of whole wheat” people in your family to a more nutritional option.
• This may seem like more salt than a typical bread recipe calls for, but several Cooks Illustrated tests on whole wheat bread recipes ended in the 2 to 2 1/2 tsp salt range. Because whole wheat flour has a stronger flavor, they felt the extra salt was necessary for balance, and I agree. If you have salt issues, or are making the recipe with more white flour, back off on the amount to 1 tsp.
• I generally use instant or “rapid rise” yeasts for the faster rise time and more consistent performance. I buy my yeast in 4 oz jars, mark the top with the month/year it is opened, and keep it in the refrigerator. I’ve never not had a loaf rise.
• If you really have lots of time, add only 1/4 tsp yeast to the liquid/white flour mixture at the beginning and let it sit from one hour to up to 12 hours at room temperature. This sponge, or “biga” in Italian, allows the dough to ferment, adding a complexity of flavor that you just can’t achieve with the “2 hour bread from start to finish” recipes. Once you are ready to continue, add the rest of the yeast (don’t forget it!) and the other ingredients and proceed as usual. You can also place the unrisen loaf, once it is shaped, into the refrigerator overnight and bake it in the morning, supposedly achieving much the same effect. I have not had good luck with this method myself as the outside of the load warms up much faster than the inside, giving inconsistent results in my world. Give it a try if you feel like it and see if it works for you.
• Have a really cool house and not a lot of time? Try this trick. Heat a mug of water in the microwave to boiling. Set it in the corner of the microwave and place dough in microwave to rise. It’s warm (because the space is small) and it’s humid, just what the yeasty beasties love. But it will irritate your loved ones who want to use the microwave in the next hour or so.
• “Let rise until double in size”. Every bread recipe says it. But generally your bread is in a round bowl, small at the bottom and wide at the top. How the heck to you know what double looks like? We detail oriented sciencey types hate this lack of precision. So…if you can find a large straight sided plastic storage container, grease the inside (I love cooking spray for this purpose), place loaf inside, and place a large rubber band around the container at dough height. When it is double in size, you’ll be able to easily tell. And the lid (cracked to allow gasses to leave) will keep your loaf moist. Brilliant.
• Looking for a more crispy crust? Commercial bakers have steam jets in their ovens to help achieve this much desired characteristic. An almost-as-good short cut is to throw a few ice cubes on the bottom of your oven when you put the loaf in (avoid placing them right next to a heating element).

• All bread recipes call for a liquid, gluten flour (generally wheat), some sort of leavening and salt. Many also include a sweetener and an oil. Ever look at old farmstead cookbook recipes for bread and they look really good but make enough to feed all the extended family and the hired help (making 2 to 3 loaves at a time)? Just use their recipe as a guideline for ingredients, use the proportions from my recipe above, and you are home free.

I picked this 1971 book up at a used book store in San Jose California many many years ago. It is one of my favorites for simple bread ideas. My bread baking essentials: a standing mixer and a scale. The bread is what's left of a loaf of oatmeal, great toasted!

MY bread baking essentials: a standing mixer and a scale. The bread is what's left of an oatmeal loaf, great for toasting.

Want to know more about how to make great free form loaves of “artisan” bread? Check out this site from Farmgirl Fare here. It’s great information, and I just love this blog in general.

So, there you have it. Now turn off the computer and get baking!

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2010, where we’re miles away from baking up all the possible combinations of this loaf of bread, but well on our way to making an attempt.

Hooray for Apple Season

A tree full of these beauties makes me feel rich!

I am living in apple paradise. How many times have I moved with boxes collected from the local grocery store, only to see “Washington Apples” on the side? Greenbluff, less than 20 minutes from my house, has a great selection of apples. We drove through one of the major Washington apple growing regions, Yakima, a few weeks ago, and saw wooden boxes of apples the size of a small cabin.  

I tend to forget how much I like apples. I eat them until about March, or until I can only find apples imported from Chile (I try not to eat food from thousands of miles away, or from other countries if I can help it). I generally move on to strawberries in about March and don’t look back from the fresh fruit glut until September. Then, the new apples start to come in, and I fall in love all over again.  

I’ve been making a habit of buying one of every type of apple I see but am not familiar with (not the gala, fuji, delicious and granny smith found at your local mega mart) and trying each one in an effort to discover a new favorite. Unfortunately, five minutes after my purchase, I can’t remember which apple is which, so it’s not doing me much good. But it IS fun.  

Our new property came with three apple trees. Two were almost bare this year (one had 5, the other 2), but the third tree was loaded. The one with five is definitely some version of red delicious, identifiable by the five “bumps” on the bottom, an apple I’ve always found quite boring to eat (give me a honeycrisp or a pink lady any day). Don’t know what I will do with them when the tree does produce. I’ve been busy making apple sauce, apple-plum sauce (I also have a LOT of plums), and apple butter from the overload of my mystery apple that breaks down quickly when cooked. Talk about locavore. My kingdom for an apple press.  It’s been on my list of wants for years, but the $500 + price tag for a good one always stops me.

What to do with the “one at a time” apple purchases? Make single serving apple crisp, of course. I have inherited an interesting collection of recipes from old boyfriends over the years, including a long simmered spaghetti sauce, supposedly authentic Buffalo New York chicken wings and “Wacky Cake” and “Chicken in Bug Juice” (i.e. cheap wine) from my husband’s Mom. This recipe comes from an ex-boyfriend’s Wisconsin Grandmother, and I have been using it for 20 years. A silver lining if there ever was one.  

Apple Crisp  

• 4 cups tart apple slices (I just use whatever I want to try out – it all comes out good, even if they aren’t the best baking apple, and I do not peel my apples. Mixing several varieties makes for a better flavor)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup flour (I use whole wheat to boost the nutrition and make me feel less guilty about the butter)
• 1 1/4 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup (one stick) cold butter (if unsalted, add a pinch of salt to the recipe)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 and grease a 7 x 11  or large round casserole pan.  

Mix all ingredients but oats in a food processor until mix looks like wet sand. Add oats and pulse until mixed but not pulverized. Layer apples in dish and top with crisp mixture. Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream for the ultimate in indulgence.  

I make the topping ahead of time and freeze it in a zip lock bag. I find that the original ratio of apples to crisp is a little heavy on the crisp side for my taste (and waist line). When making a single serving, I slice one apple into a small greased oven proof baking dish, top with a handful of crisp topping, and bake in the toaster oven for about 20 minutes.  

Feel free to play with ingredients. Substitute almonds, walnuts or pecans for some or all of the oats. Trade out allspice for nutmeg, or try pumpkin pie spice (generally a mix of cinnamon, ginger and clove) instead. You can’t go wrong. 

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2010, where it must be officially fall, because the apples are ripe and the house smells like cinnamon.

A Million Muffins

What kind of muffins to make today? The actual muffin is a banana walnut made yesterday. This silicone muffin pan clearly gets a lot of use. The jar of salt (blue lid) is an old fresh salad dressing jar that I've had for so long that I think something bad will happen if it breaks. I've literally had it since before I got married in 1998. That has got to be some kind of record for recycling a jar!

My husband loves muffins. Pretty much any kind. Whenever I ask what he wants for breakfast, the answer is almost always muffins. I eat two or three. He finishes the rest throughout the day. 

So I’m always on the lookout for a good muffin recipe. But for me, a good muffin recipe must be reasonably healthy. I define this as having no more than 1/4 cup fat and 1/2 cup sugar or less per dozen muffins. We’re not talking 400+ calorie a piece, bigger than your fist, covered with icing, coffee shop muffins here. 

Over the years, I’ve made many many muffins, carefully following the directions, as one should when baking (it’s chemistry, after all).  Then, one day I was leafing through an old extension office recipe book on high altitude baking and ran across a muffin recipe with many variations. One recipe, many options. I love it! I’ve been making them this way ever since. Below is my version, which has worked for me at both 7,000 and 2,000 ft. 

I’m sure you could even mix together a big batch of the dry part of this recipe to keep on hand, cutting down your time spent in the kitchen on a Saturday morning. I’ve always intended to do that, but never quite get around to it. Experiment to your heart’s content. 

Healthy Muffins - Creative Options 

• 2 cups flour (I always use whole wheat for the added fiber and nutrition. You could do all-purpose, or a mix of 1/2 all-purpose and 1/2 whole wheat, or add up to 2 tbsp ground flax seed, oat or wheat bran, or phylum husk for added fiber and then make up the rest with flour. Many possible variations here as long as you total 2 cups)
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup sugar (I vary this depending upon how sweet my fruit is and what I’m in the mood for. With bananas you might be able to get away with 1/4 cup sugar, with blueberries you might want to go with 1/2 cup. You can also use “Splenda for Baking” here if you were really watching calories/simple carb intake. Follow package directions for amount)
• 2 tsp baking powder (use baking powder without aluminum. I really notice the difference in taste. *For recipes made with buttermilk, yogurt, or a citrus juice, which are all somewhat acidic, change this to 1 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp baking soda)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup milk (If using whole wheat flour, add 1/4 cup extra liquid per cup of flour used. Whole wheat can soak up a lot of extra moisture. I use 1% milk or buttermilk. You could probably try plain yogurt, rice or soy milk as well)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil (I use only canola for all of my baking, a great heart healthy oil)
• Spices as desired – up to about 2 tsp
• Extracts as desired – up to 1 tsp
• 1/2 cup nuts and or 1 cup fresh fruit and or 1/2 cup dried fruit as desired

Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder (and baking soda if using), salt, any spices and or zests in large mixing bowl. Blend egg, milk, oil, and any extracts together in separate small bowl. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until just moistened. Fold in fruit and nuts, if using. Portion into greased or paper lined muffin tins. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes or until muffins spring back when poked with a finger. 

Additional Variations (* indicates an acid recipe – switch out your leavening. See explanation above.) 

*Orange: Substitute 1/2 cup orange juice for 1/2 cup milk. Add orange zest and/or orange extract if desired. 

Bran: Reduce flour to 1 cup. Soak 2 cups bran flakes with the milk for 1-2 minutes to soften. Mix bran/milk mixture into egg/oil mixture. 

*Cornbread: Substitute 1 cup cornmeal for 1 cup flour and use buttermilk. For savory muffins, add chopped green chilies and corn rather than fruit, and a little chili powder or cumin. 

Oatmeal: Presoak 1 cup rolled oats with milk for 15 minutes. Reduce flour to 1 cup. Blend oatmeal/milk mixture with egg/oil mixture. 

You can mix and match variations. In other words, you might make orange dried cranberry walnut oatmeal muffins, or a fresh chopped apple, raisin and spice muffins).

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2010, where we’re miles away from calorie bomb sized monster muffins (never mind if you eat 8 or 9) and feeling rather pleased with our own creativity.

Sourdough Update

Fresh from the oven sourdough baguette.

Well, I wrote too soon. Turns out the morning after my sourdough post, my starter “woke up”.

I had decided to stop feeding it twice a day, as that had become a bit of a pain with little reward. Having not fed it the night before, I fed it that morning for the first time in about 24 hours.  As I puttered around the kitchen, I looked over at the starter jar and… drum roll… it was growing. “Well hello there” I said.

The rubber band indicates where the level started. You can see that the starter has more than doubled.

The starter has since been reliably doubling in size between feedings (I’m still only feeding it once per day, and plan to retire it to the refrigerator very soon).

I have made two loaves of bread with this starter and am still perfecting the recipe. Likely due to the ambient temperature of my house, the bread has a long rise time, 5-6 hours. Because of this, the top tends to dry out, even when oiled. This decreases its ability to expand in the oven. But the bread has a lovely flavor. Not too sour. Just very flavorful.

Sourdough Baguette
This recipe is based on Michael Ruhlman’s bread ratio of 5 pts flour to 3 pts water (assuming the starter is 50/50 flour to water by weight)

• 50 g starter
• 100 g water
• 200 g all-purpose unbleached flour
• 1 scant tsp salt

Mix ingredients with a spoon until dough comes together. Then knead by hand or with a standing mixer and dough hook until dough is smooth and passes a window pane test (a small amount of dough can be stretched out in a disc until you can see light through it without tearing, indicating good gluten formation). This will take anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. Dough will be soft and almost sticky.

Shape dough into long baguette loaf. Place on heavily floured board, cover with dish towel (plastic wrap may be better for drying issues - that will be the next experiment) and let rise in a warm place until about double in size.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Just before baking, slash top of loaf 3 or 4 times. Slide loaf (first gently releasing it from board if necessary) into oven, preferably onto a preheated pizza stone. Bake until loaf is golden brown and/or internal temperature reaches 200 degrees. Let cool slightly and try not to eat in one sitting!

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2010, where we’re miles away from a bad loaf of bread, and the butter is dripping between our fingers.

Adventures in Sourdough

The dough (a 50-50 mix of white and rye flour) at the beginning of the adventure.

I don’t know why, but I want to make bread that is ONLY risen by a sourdough starter. I’ve messed around with sourdough starters for years. Years ago I used a recipe with baker’s yeast (not a good idea. The acidic environment in a good sourdough will kill bakers yeast). I also tried one that used yogurt to get things going (not a bad idea, as the wild bacteria in good sourdough is a lactobacillus bacteria, and so are some of the bacteria in an active yogurt culture. This would also explain why some starters feed with flour and milk, rather than flour and water, but…yuck…warm milk sitting on top of my fridge…can’t go there). I’ve made some tasty starters, but I have never been able to create a starter that could rise a loaf of bread on its own. Turns out, I still can’t. Here’s my adventure.  

Searching with my friend Google, I came across Sourdough.com. Tons of great information on all things sourdough, if you are willing to read through it. Sounded like this guy had done his research, in spades, and he had been a commercial baker. It was worth a try.  

The site recommended the Professor Calvel method for making a new starter. This recipe was different in several ways from ones I had seen before. It used a 10:6 ratio of flour to water (much higher flour than is typical), a bit of barley malt and salt at the beginning, and rye flour (which I had heard was a good source for the bacteria you want). So off I went to buy some rye flour and some barley malt. I’d been meaning to visit Jim’s Homebrew Supply in Spokane anyway.  

Not feeling comfortable throwing out all that flour as the starter got going (you dump 1/2 the starter every time you feed it, which is 5 times in 48 hours), I decided to try cutting the recipe in half. Perhaps this was my mistake.  

I can't begin to express how hard this "dough" was to work with. Ugh.

At the fourth feeding, the dough was too sticky to knead. Think wall paper paste. Thank goodness I have a standing mixer. Silicone spatulas were essential. By the fifth feeding, the dough was supposed to be doubling in size after every feeding. Mine had a nice sour smell, no signs of spoilage and a few bubbles, but was definitely NOT doubling. I wanted a hare. I got a tortoise.  

I kept going. The Sourdough site is very very insistent that you need to feed your starter at least twice a day. Somewhere on the 4th day I decided to reinoculate the mix with more rye flour, since this is where the sourdough yeast and bacteria is supposed to come from. Maybe by cutting the recipe in half, I had somehow not reached a critical mass? Nothing.

The thinned starter is much easier to work with. These bubbles indicate it is active.

Around the 6th day (and most of a 5 lb bag of flour later), I decided I had a good starter that was not going to rise on its own, and switched to a 1:1 ratio of flour to water by weight when feeding, which substantially thins out the batter, making it easy to work with (I was tired of trying to get flour glue out of all my bowls).  

I added cornmeal to the "starter" until the dough was workable.

What to do with all that “thrown out” starter? Well…I hate to throw stuff out. So except for the first feeding, I saved the mix in a container in the refrigerator, and after a couple of days, I made dog biscuits. (The first few days, the starter is not “fit” for human consumption, but I have dogs who eat…well, you don’t want to know some of the things they have eaten. So I figured a well-baked dough would not hurt them.) A bunch of corn meal I needed to use up, some meat drippings, a little sugar and garlic powder, some salt and an egg later, and voila, a dough I could roll out and work with. (My go to dog biscuit recipe is posted below – what I made with the sourdough reject dough was loosely based on this).  

Five minutes in a 450 degree oven on a pizza stone. Yum.

Once the dough was sufficiently “sour” after a few days, I kept the “throw away” dough and made it into pizza shells for a quick supper (who needs Boboli). This suggestion came from the Sourdough site, and was a good one.  

So, does this starter make a good bread? I don’t know yet. But I will be adding yeast for leavening when I try it. I may just go back to my old standby. The “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” method is great, gives a good “sour” flavor as the dough ages, and does not need to be fed twice a day. Mother Earth News has several good articles on this method to get you started (I have terrible luck with their internal search engine – try putting “artisan bread five minutes mother earth” into Google). Highly recommended.  

Sourdough Starter with Rye  
(Calvel Method – adapted to English volume measurements for those without a kitchen scale or the ability to measure in grams).  

Note: Based on the Calvel feeding schedule, the best time to start this recipe is 6:00 pm. I cut the recipe below in half and did not have great success – so you might want to make the whole thing.  

• 2 cups Rye Flour (stone ground if possible – I used Hodgson Mills. Bulk organic from a natural foods store would also be a good choice – this is less than 1 lb)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (unbleached and organic if possible)
• 1 1/2 cups warm water (filtered if your tap water has chlorine)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp barley malt extract (any kind – there are a lot. Borrow a bit from a brewer friend if possible. Comes in liquid and powder. I used powdered).

Step 1: Mix all ingredients together and knead briefly. Place in a measuring bowl (glass prefered) so you know the starting volume and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Set in warm place (80 degrees is ideal) for 22 hours.  

Step 2: At 4:00 pm the next day, measure out 1/2 the dough and knead in 2 cups all-purpose flour, 3/4 cup warm water and a pinch of salt (around 1/8 tsp). Toss out the rest of the dough, clean out your measuring container, put new dough back in now clean container, cover again and place in warm place.  

At 11:00 pm, repeat step 2 above.  

At 6:00 am, repeat step 2 above.  

At noon, repeat step 2 above.  

At 6:00 pm, repeat step 2 above. Your dough should now be doubling in size between feedings, and should be fed twice a day for at least a week before any refrigeration.  

Let me know if this works for you or what your sourdough adventures have been. For me this one was a bust.  

Loki and Freya’s Favorite Dog Biscuits  
Adapted from the “Sniff N’ Bite Biscuits”, out of MacPherson’s K-9 Cookbook, plus a recipe I found on the internet  

• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup powdered skim milk
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/3 cup meat drippings (I save bacon and other grease in a jar in the freezer until I am ready to make these).
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp ice water

Combine flour, powdered milk, sugar and garlic powder. Blend in meat drippings. Make a well in the mixture and stir in egg and ice water until blended. Form dough into a ball. Divide in two. Knead each ball on a floured surface for about 2 minutes. Roll out dough to between 1/4 and 1/2 inches thick. Cut with biscuit cutter or knife (Christmas cookie cutters would be really funny here). Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees. (I flip mine mid bake and use parchment paper to prevent sticking). Cool. (Make sure these are thoroughly baked if you live in humid climates or they will mold in the bag. I often just leave mine in the oven with it off until it cools).

Update: The starter did subsequently “wake up”. See follow up post.

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2010, where we’re miles away from a self-rising sourdough, but our pizza dough rocks!