sourdough

super awesome happy times sour dough waffles

I have a silicone mat that makes oven waffles six at a time. I’ve been experimenting with the formula, and this one has been the most super awesome happy times version thus far

Dump 2 cups of discard (use 1/2 as much water as flour to feed your starter, then again, put in 1 cup of flour to 1/2 a cup of water and wait two hours. Alternatively, you can do this the night before for breakfast time.

2 beaten eggs)

1/4 cup of whipping cream (I didn’t have butter or a lot of milk to spare. You can add 2 tbs butter to 1 cup of milk if you have to, but cannot promise super awesome happy time results)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder (sifted or put into a small bowl and smashed about on the back of the spoon to get rid of the lumps

2 tbs honey

Add everything together fast as you can, beat the hell out of it for like 10 strokes and then stop. Dump immediately into a well greased silcone waffle maker already on a cookie sheet. If you need to cook them manually or as pancakes, divide batter in half and add 1/2 tsp of baking powder as you’re ready for each. You want these to be light and fluffy.

In a 350 degrees oven Bake 20 minutes, put parchment paper over the top, put a second cookie sheet over the parchment and flip the while thing. The silicone mold should come right off. Bake 7 minutes. Sprinkle brown sugar on waffles and broil last three.

I haven’t retested this method, but these were to die for. They were creamy centered, crisp, and the bruleed sugar on top was the best bit. The baking soda gave them a happy pretzel-y taste that I picked up.

It’s a great way to use your discarded sourdough starter, or something to just make. All told, it’s five minutes of prep and 30 minutes of waiting if you have one of these. (Not an affiliated link. Get it, don’t get it, but they make using your discard *so* easy)

We’ve been lied to about French Toast all these years…also microbial hunger game pancakes

Ed. note: Sadly this is my first blog tagged “french toast of the gods”. I’ve been been blogging since 2004. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I made a big white loaf of bread last night that turned out amazing, but since I got the sourdough starter (Tara and Willy are chilling with me on the fireplace) I’ve been making sourdough starter pancakes. You *have* to throw have your baby starter out so that the remainder can eat, kind of like a mini-microbial Hunger Games and throwing it away makes me cry. You take the starter you’re going to have to kill anyway, add milk and some oil (I’ve been using coconut) and egg and as much flour as it need to be “batter like” then instead of the traditional baking powder you use yeast and leave it rise for 1-2 hours. Oh, and it needs sweeter. I’ve been using honey, but anything woul do.

So now I’m probably going to cut it up into thick slices and cook it up as french bread so that when I’m hungry in the morning I can just reheat something loaded with custard-like egg filling. We’ve been lied about what French Toast could and should be. Take extra thick slices of bread, soak it in the egg and milk mixture overnight, then fry it in a pan until it’s lovely and golden brown and then finish it in the oven @ 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes until the centre is set.

I know that the average French bread (storebought thin, stale bread just dipped in egg wash and cooked is good, but doing it in the oven (or, after it’s been fried, you could put it in your slow cooker for an hour too!) you get this wonderful slice of bread pudding, but like for breakfast. If you add a little (not a lot, just a little sugar and vanilla in the egg mixture I swear it doesn’t need any more butter or syrup. It is a holy good thing on its own.

Adventures in Sourdough Land: Day 2

We still don’t have any bread flour, but one of the starters is a non-sour sour sourdough that feeds exclusively off wheat. Her name is Tara, so naturally I’m changing the actual sourdough starter’s name to Willow so they can always be together.

I screwed up a couple times (in my defense, Tara’s instructions are so complicated compared to the sourdough starters that it took up a whole page. I even woke up this morning at eight to feed her because her first feeding was supposed to happen 6-8 hours after the first one. You’re supposed to pour off half the starter every time you feed her so that there are fewer mouths the feed with all the new food, but I hate throwing away starter so I threw the less than third of the cup into another bowl, added 1/3 of a cup of rye and 1/3 cup of cake and pastry flour, about the same amount of milk as the flours, an egg, a quarter teaspoon of yeast and some honey. I melted a bit a butter in the milk as I heated it up and let it sit on the counter for two hours to get bubbly after I whisked it up.

I only made six child-size silver dollar pancakes with her, but already after day one there was a yeasty developed flavour already started. I think Tara’s alive!