Christmas festivites and sourdough
I’m not going to do a huge Christmas-Eats recap as honestly we didn’t put too much emphasis on the food on December 25. Sacrilege!
There was a huge avocado/mango salad…. rice and lettuce wraps (make your own), macadamia and pinto bean dip, tofu, prawn skewers and smoked salmon (for Viper & Misty) and yeah, lots of vodka cocktails.
My favourite thing was these frozen nectarine stars I made (to go in said vodka cocktails) – I just blended up nectarines in the food processor and poured into little silicone moulds. Perfect to pop into cocktails – as they melt they add an awesome fruity hit. Good to eat on their own too. Basically, it was too hot to do much more than laze around (and drink). Perfect. Good thing Misty got a paddling pool from Santa. Viper & myself must have been very bad this year (or we just got lazy and decided to flag pressies).
I’m not a huge bread fan. I don’t like sandwiches, I’d rather just eat the filling bit. The only time I went on a toast-bender was when I was pregnant (and the only thing that didn’t make me want to chuck was tomato on toast). It just doesn’t excite me that much. Viper, on the other hand is bread-obsessed…. we go through a LOT of bread in this house. I quite enjoy the process of bread making, actually – it’s quite fascinating.
Bread making is one instance where you HAVE to stick to the recipe. I have had a LOT of failures, due to rule-straying. I have a bread maker, but I must admit, my best loaves have been the ones I made completely myself – kneading, proving and the likes. The lactic acid fermentation makes sour dough one of the more easily digested and healthful breads out there. This isn’t strictly a traditional sour dough recipe, as it uses additional yeast in the bread making part (it’s not wholly naturally leavened) …. but it is a pretty simple project to undertake, and the final product has a brilliant sour flavour and lovely texture.
I used rye flour in my starter, but you can use plain flour if that suits you better. As starters go, this is quite a simple one to grow/maintain, although it is not vegan. I may try and play around with a vegan version soon – just needed to perfect this one for the bread-monsters I live with first.
Yoghurt-Based Sour Dough Starter:
- 1C plain yoghurt
- 1C rye flour
- 1C water
- 2t yeast granules
- Mix all ingredients together in a large glass jar/container.
- Cover with a clean tea towel and leave in a warm, dark, draught free area for 4-7 days (depending on temperature). It will bubble and go a bit crazy for the first day or so (hence use a LARGE jar/container so it doesn’t over-flow) but will settle down.
- Each day stir with a clean spoon, and give it a sniff – when it smells very sour, it is ready to use (mine took 4 days, and it was on average 26-30 degrees C where I live).
- Pop a lid on, and store in the fridge until ready to use.
Starter Maintenance:
- Each time you take out starter to use for bread, replace it with the same amount of flour/water. For example, if you take out 1 & 1/2C starter, stir together 1 & 1/2C flour and around 2C water and stir into the starter. This is food for the starter. Keep the jar out at room temperature for about 12 hours before putting back in the fridge – the starter will bubble up.
- Even if you don’t make bread every week – you MUST take out 1 & 1/2C of the old starter and feed it – either give it away to friends, or just chuck out. Otherwise your starter will starve.
Simple Sough Dough Bread:
- 1 & 1/2C starter
- 2C high grade (baker’s flour) – it could be called “strong” flour or 00 flour too.
- 2t yeast granules
- 1/2t sea salt
- 1T raw sugar
- 2T oil (olive works well)
- 1/2C milk
1. Mix these first ingredients and leave to rest for 15 minutes (if you want a really sour flavour in the bread leave for longer).
- 1C +3T organic plain flour (or more rye flour)
2. Add in additional flour and knead for about 10 minutes on a floured board. The dough should become smooth and silky, and spring back when pressed lightly.
3. Slug a bit of additional oil in a large bowl, and turn the dough through it a few times. Leave to rise for 40 minutes,covered in a warm, dark place.
4. Bake in a hot oven (200 degrees) for around 25-30 minutes, or until it is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped. Depending on the shape of bread you like, you can bake it in a normal loaf pan, wing it and “free-form” a loaf, or even use a cake pan.
5. Cool on a wire rack.
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas….. What did you get up to? Tempted to try making your own starter for bread?
21 Responses to “Christmas festivites and sourdough”
Trackbacks / Pingbacks
- - January 3, 2013
- - January 7, 2013
Leave a Reply
Vegan. Stay at home Mum of Misty. Yoga teacher in training. Passionate about REAL food - creating it, eating it, sharing it. I can never stick to a recipe.
Wow I love the look of those tangerine stars Lou, so creative!! I’m definitely going to try something like that for New Years
Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!
We had a lovely relaxing day, thanks Gabby – so nice to do NOTHING on Christmas for once
I love being lazy!
ohhh I am SO happy your shared this. I have been doing A LOT of bread baking around here (Holden is a little bread monster). My very favorite bread is sour dough and I have never made my own starter, but your directions seem easy enough to try!! Excited to test it out
Hope you guys enjoyed your sunny holidays… we are snowed in here and I’m already ready for Summer haha
This is really so easy, Ami – I hope you give it a go…. it’s delicious (and I don’t even really like bread!) I will send you some virtual sunshine
We have almost too much over here, SO HOT!
All of your Christmas food sounds great & those stars are cute – I love cutting shapes into fruit but haven’t gone the frozen route before!
I’m not that fussed about bread either but do like making it
I find bread making rather lovely…. plus it makes the house smell nice! Eating it, however is not my favourite – but I love to make it for Viper & Misty – and they appreciate it!
Merry Christmas Lou! Oh, how I long for that sun and that warmth!
As I’m sure you can guess by the fact that we have super similar tastes, I’m not fussed by bread either, so am unlikely to ever bother with starter. Though I have been meaning to make an olive beer bread for years now…
Oh my Mum used to make a beer-bread…. from memory it was really easy. I don’t like beer OR bread, Ha
Thanks SO much for this. I’m going to do it.. I’m hoping that the more useful I become in the kitchen, the more likely that The Programmer will one day say.. look, why don’t you just retire and spend all day doing stuff around the house
Haha.
Just another additions for the fermentation station, right?
Your eats look YUMMOO. I want to come have vodka cocktails and sit in that awesome pool with you guys! I love bread, probably way too much. I could eat like 6 sandwiches in one day. And I have..
4 not 6..HA! OOps.
As I have said before, Britt, you are welcome ANY time
When I was pregnant, I could easily eat 6 sandwiches a day….. PB & Apricot Jam was my crack.
What a lovely loaf of bread! I’m addicted to the stuff, but have tried to cut back a bit because it kind of nags at me that maybe it’s not that great for me.
Love the nectarine stars!
Thanks Annie – you should see the amount of bread we go through in this house, crazy. Good thing I really enjoy making (not really eating) it. Hope you had a lovely Xmas
Oh how I love bread! That looks scrumptious! I will definitely have to give it a try. Maybe to make it vegan you could use a combo of almond milk and apple cider vinegar or lemon juice? I hope you had a great Christmas and New Year’s Lou!
Thanks Lauren – I hope you had a lovely Christmas break too
I think for the initial starter you would definitely need to use a cultured yoghurt (either almond milk/soy/coconut) because it’s the live bacteria that make it work – I will try and have a play with a vegan version soon though!
Well, I am definitely going to try it, as my fireboy and the girls love bread as well. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Fabulous – make sure you do let me know how it goes…. always love to hear