Sourdough

In the way that one thing leads to another, we now have sourdough starter living in our refrigerator. It started last fall, at a little restaurant in Wisconsin. We sat at a table next to the built in bookshelves, and grabbed cookbooks to browse while we waited for our lunch. Mike chose a Sandwich cookbook, and liked what he saw, eventually purchasing his own copy. Since he works from home, he has a bit more flexibility in what he has for lunch, and started making fancy sandwiches. Most of them (which have been delicious) call for sourdough bread, which we would buy at the grocery store. (As opposed to the homemade bread that is all we've eaten for the past decade or so, ever since I got a bread machine.) I figured it was time to give homemade sourdough a try, but never got around to it.

Then Mike went on the great western road trip, and brought home some new cookbooks. Included was one with instructions for making and using sourdough starter. It's a pretty simple concept: flour, water, and some yeast sitting on the counter. Eventually it moves to the fridge, and then into the bread dough. We've tried white bread, pancakes, and now wheat bread. Nothing was so bad that we wouldn't eat it, but nothing has been so good that we're ready to stop looking for something better. It does seem clear that the crustiness of the grocery store loaves will require baking in the oven instead of the bread machine, which is an added level of effort and fussiness that the machine usually eliminates. All part of the fun, I guess. Let me know if you have any favorite recipes that are bread machine friendly (at least for the dough cycle).