Sourdough and Buttermilk biscuits.

We have a lot of sourdough starter here at the birdhouse. So we have to find ways to use the "discard" that which is poured off the starter before a feeding. If we didn't pour it off, the starter would grow uncontrollably.
Looking at the discard, it is about the texture of buttermilk. And it has some tanginess to it too. So, why not try a little substitution. We did, and it got the "we can serve this to people: accolade from Madame, so I knew we were onto something here.

Ingredients

2 Cups All Purpose Four, sifted (I sift all flour out of habit)

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 cup butter, straight from the fridge, cut into 12 or so small pieces. (if salted, reduce the salt in the recipe a little)

3/4 cup "discard"

1/4 cup buttermilk

Method

Preheat the oven to 400F. I am using a fan assist in mine. You *may* need to adjust the temperature up a little if you do not have a fan in yours. Place the rack in the upper middle.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cut the butter into the flour mixture. It doesn't have to be like fine breadcrumbs, it is OK to have some bigger pieces of butter. It's like making flaky pastry.

Add the buttermilk and discard, and mix by hand to make a stiff dough.. Don't rinse the measurement container - you will use the remains to brush on the biscuits before cooking.

Wrap the dough in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Especially if it is warm (like it is here in Texas today).

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and shape into a rectangle about 1/2" thick. Using some kind of cutter (a cup, a circular cutter, etc.) cut out the rounds. Don't twist the cutter as that pinches the edges and prevents that nice craggy rise. Since there will be some left over, you can recombine it (and if you feel the butter is beginning to melt, refrigerate again). These will hold their shape less well, but will still be delicious.

Brush the tops of the biscuits with some of the liquid scraped out of the measurement cup you used earlier.

Bake on a parchment covered sheet pan for 9 minutes, take the pan out of the oven, rotate and bake for a further 6 minutes (even if using a fan) - until they are golden brown. 

Sourdough Crackers

In the land of sourdough bread baking, we often find ourselves with excess starter. Because as we feed our starters, they increase in bulk. If we kep doing it proportionally we would end up with a starter that would take over the neighborhood. So the vexing question of what to do with the excess came up. This is a baking case where measuring by volume is perfectly OK. So it is really quick and easy to do.

Ingredients

1 Cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp Kosher salt (more or less to taste)

1 Cup Sourdough starter excess (usually called discard in baking circles)

1/2 a stick of cold butter (2 oz)

Method

Combine the flour and salt thoroughly. Cut the butter into the flour as if you were making pie dough (pastry). Pour in all of the starter and mix with your fingers. Initially it will all clump up on your fingers, but as you work it a bit, it will gradually come together and your fingers will be almost clean.

Divide the dough in half and make a small disk out of each half. Wrap the dough disks individually in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes - an hour is better. 

Preheat the oven to 350F. The shelf should be on the upper middle rack. While the oven is preheating, roll a dough disk out on a piece of parchment paper (greaseproof) sized to fit in a 1/2 sheet pan. The disk should reach almost to the edges of the parchment. Transfer the parchment with the dough on it to the sheet pan. Cut the dough sheet into suitably sized (1" square is good) pieces. Dock each square several times with a fork.

Bake for about 15 minutes - until golden brown. You may want to ratate the pan after 9 minutes - depending on how evenly your oven heats.

Allow to cool on the sheet. Transfer to an airtight container - they will keep for about a week (if they last that long before eating them all!).

After the first batch has baked and cooled, I reuse the parchment for the second disk. But do make sure the sheet pan is cool - otherwise the dough becomes unmanageable.

Fresh Bread Every Day

I am lucky enough to have had some  baking teachers. Some of them know who they are, but many don't. In this post I want to acknowledge the people who have really helped my bread making journey. I will probably forget some, but here goes.

My late Aunt Jill used to make all the bread that her family ate. It was whole wheat, sturdy and delicious. She made me realize that it was possible.

Mark Bittman in the NYT for publishing the no-knead bread approach

Daniel Leader for his amazing book called LocalBreads - it really started the ball rolling with the wonderful variety of artisinal European breads. Opened my eyes to what happens when ratios are varied. Introduced me to the world of baker's percentages.

Peter Reinhard on this craftsy course  introducing me to the stretch and fold method of dough making. Suddenly I was able to handle much larger amounts of dough.

Mike Avery at sourdoughhome  for explaining to me why my sourdough starter was leaving me with flat limp dough. And thus helping me make fantastic sourdough.

Clint Cooper of The Village Baking Co. in Dallas for answering my newbie questions so patiently

Ciril Hitz in this video for demonstrating how to shape loaves.

Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day  (twitter @artisanbreadin5) for the method that ensures I have fresh bread every day.

All in all a very helpful crew! Now I make dough once per week and have fresh bread every day. And it is very good.

The daily bread is mostly small (because I don't have a huge oven) baguettes that I take to work with either cheese, soup (or both!). We also bake a couple of normal (1 1/2lb) sized loaves for toast, etc. Left overs become croutons and breadcrumbs.

Yes I do weigh everything. Yes it is metric. But the ratios are easy.  The Imperial weights are not directly equivalent. I rounded the flour to a convenient amount and scaled everything else accordingly.

 Ingredients

2 Kg  Bread flour (1 use King Arthur)                    5lbs = 1 bag

1.36 Kg room temperature filtered water                6 3/4 cups

14 Gm Rapid rise yeast                                            1/2 oz

44 gm salt                                                                1 1/2 oz (maybe a little more)

a little vegetable oil to prevent sticking

Method

In a large bowl mix the flour, salt and yeast. Add the water and mix thoroughly. Cover and leave to stand for 20 or so minutes to hydrate the flour.

Lightly oil your work surface, turn the dough out onto it and lightly oil the dough. Stretch the dough by anchoring one end to the counter and pushing the dough away from you with the other until about doubled in length. Fold the dough back on itself, rotate half turn and stretch again. Stretch and fold four times. Cover the dough again and allow to rest. 

Stretch and fold following the preceding procedure twice more at 25 (give or take) minute intervals. By now the dough should be smooth and stretchy.

Put the dough into a container that has room for it to double in volume. Leave the dough at room temp until it has doubled.

Take the dough out of the container onto your work surface (do not flour). Stretch and fold once more, form a ball, replace the dough into the container and refrigerate.

When baking you want to have a pizza stone on the upper middle rack and a pan for water on the rack below it. You will use about 1 cup water in the pan.

My morning ritual for making bread for lunch goes something like this:

1. Turn on oven to 425F
2. Put water on for tea/coffee
3. Retrieve dough from fridge and tear off some 175 gm (6 oz) pieces. Roll gently on a floured board and allow to relax
4. Replace Container in fridge
5. Make tea/coffee
6. Form the dough into mini baguettes
7. Drink tea/coffee
8. Place dough in couches to rest and rise a bit
9. Shower
10. Transfer shaped dough to floured peel
11. Slit the dough using a razor blade making three lengthways cuts
12. Place water into the hot pan that is on the lower rack (creates steam in the oven for a better crust), taking care not to scald yourself.
13. Transfer loaves to oven and bake for 24 minutes
14. Dress
15. Pull loaves from oven and place in brown bags for lunch

Start to finish time - about an hour!