Making bread from a sourdough starter is a little tricky to get used to! Here’s an idea to try if you weren’t entirely pleased with how your sourdough bread turned out:
While following these basic steps to creating sourdough bread…in the morning after you add water, flour and salt…instead of placing the kneaded dough in a bowl to raise all day…then shaping the dough into loaves…simply shape the dough into loaves immediately after kneading it in the morning. SKIP the part where it raises in the bowl. I know this sounds weird…but try it. Since your starter has been fed and allowed to sit out all night…the yeast in it is already activated and a double rising the next day may not be necessary!
The part I like best about this tip is that it saves TIME! My friend, Anne, who has more sourdough experience than I have does it this way every time and her bread turns out beautiful.
I have yet to experiment much with my sourdough starter with recipes other than bread. However…a couple of you have been kind enough to send me some of your recipes…so I’m sharing those now.
Here are a couple of Heidi’s recipes:
Sourdough Pancakes
The night before your breakfast, place the 2-3 cups of starter in a medium size mixing bowl. Add 2 cups warm water and 2 cups flour. Beat well and set in a warm place, free from draft, to develop overnight. In the morning the batter will have gained 1/2 again its bulk and be covered with air bubbles. It will have a pleasant yeasty odor.
Set aside one cup of sourdough starter in the refrigerator jar for your starter the next time. To remaining sponge add:
1 or 2 eggs
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbl. sugar
Beat with a fork and blend in all ingredients. Add 2 Tbl melted fat. Bake on a hot griddle. Turn once. Serve.
Sourdough Waffles
Set the sponge as for pancakes. Make it slightly thicker. Let it stand overnight. Remove the usual one cup of starter for next time, and to the remaining sponge add:
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbl. sugar
1 tsp. soda
2 eggs
1.4 cup melted fat
Mix well and add fat just before baking. Bake according to directions that came with the waffle iron.
Here are some of Jill’s recipes:
Sourdough Waffles
In a large bowl put 1 cup of sourdough starter, add 2 cups of warm water and 3 cups of flour. Beat until smooth, cover and let stand overnight. The next morning beat in 3 eggs, ½ cup of oil, 2 T honey,or Rapadura, 1 tsp of salt. Stir in a small cup put ¼ t. baking soda in 1 T water and swirl around quickly and then pour right into the batter. Let stand 30 minutes and then use in a waffle iron. These are fabulous!
Sourdough Pancakes
The night before put 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sourdough starter and 1 cup of milk. Hand mix well and cover and let stand overnight. The next morning add 2 beaten eggs, 1 tablespoon of honey,or Rapadura 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of soda and 3 T oil.
Mix together and cook like regular pancakes. These are very yummy.
Fried Cakes (Jill says, “This is one of our favorite recipes. We don’t fry often but when we do these are so disgustingly good with homemade jam or honey dipped in.”)
Mix 1 cup of flour, 2 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of baking soda, 2 T honey or rapadura. Then add 2 cups of starter. Add enough flour to roll in a ball. Roll it out to about ½ inch thick and then cut into pieces and shapes. They should be smaller than a biscuit, probably about half the size of a biscuit. We like making funny shapes. Fry in hot oil and then put on paper towels to cool.
Thanks Heidi and Jill for helping us out with more sourdough recipe ideas!
Jill also sent me her Sourdough English Muffin recipe which I will share soon!
I also have a recipe that I will share soon for making sourdough pancakes just by soaking flour in buttermilk overnight (you don’t have to use a sourdough starter). YUM!
Yay for all kinds of new recipes!
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Visit Tammy’s Recipes for more kitchen tips!
Jen says
For Heidi’s recipes, how much starter should be used?
Shannon Fowler says
Someone from a Yahoo group I belong to was asking for a sourdough starter & I pointed her here. Then decided to link all the sour dough entries for the group in an e-mail & the files… Is that ok? I didn’t think to ask until it was already done! Sorry! :D I’ll take them off if you’re not ok with it. I Promise! :)
Tarena says
oh, how i wish i had read that little trick yesterday…i am making bread today! oh well…it seems to be going great! you would be so proud!!! i had extra dough, so i made them into one inch balls and put them into my stoneware muffin pan to make “rolls”. I’ll have to take pictures if it turns out!
thank you for all your help!
Sweetpeas says
Do you know, for the pancake recipes, if the sugar is necessary for the recipe to work right (like in yeast bread where it’s necessary to feed the yeast)? Or is just a flavor thing? My dh doesn’t like anything sweet (seriously, he won’t eat corn on the cob, it’s “too sweet”) so I prefer non-sweet pancake recipes, he eats them plain with butter, I add maple syrup, yum!
jen@Balancing Beauty and Bedlam says
I have been making bread for years, but have not done much with sourdough…I am off to take mine out of the fridge and see if it’s still good. :) first time visitor to your blog..fun, fun.
Marsha_M says
I’m on day 3 and hoping the starter turns out right! I am so glad you did this series and I was surfing for more troubleshooting advice to make sure my starter is doing what it is supposed to do and found the following recipe which sounds amazing! Here is the link: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/RecipeDisplay?RID=94
And the recipe (which looks like it would be easy to substitute better ingredients like Rapadura & coconut oil):
Sourdough Chocolate Cake
Cake
* 1 cup “fed” sourdough starter
* 1 cup milk (whole milk or 2% preferred) or evaporated milk
* 2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
* 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
* 1 cup vegetable oil
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
* 3/4 cup natural cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
* 1 teaspoon espresso powder, optional
* 2 large eggs
Icing
* 6 cups confectioners’ sugar
* 3/4 cup butter
* 1/2 cup plain yogurt or buttermilk
* 1 tablespoon + 1 1/2 teaspoons espresso powder
* 1 tablespoon hot water
Drizzle
* 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
* 1 tablespoon milk
* 1 tablespoon corn syrup
Directions
1) Combine the “fed” starter, milk, and flour in a large mixing bowl. Cover and let rest at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours. It won’t necessarily bubble, but it may have expanded a bit.
2) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9″ x 13″ pan.
3) In a separate bowl, beat together the sugar, oil, vanilla, salt, baking soda, cocoa. and espresso powder. The mixture will be grainy.
4) Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5) Gently combine the chocolate mixture with the starter-flour-milk mixture, stirring till smooth. This will be a gloppy process at first, but the batter will smooth out as you continue to beat gently.
6) Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
7) Bake the cake for 30 to 40 minutes, until it springs back when lightly pressed in the center, and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
8) Remove the cake from the oven, and set it on a rack to cool while you make the icing.
9) Sift the confectioners’ sugar into a large mixing bowl, and set it aside.
10) In a small saucepan set over medium heat, melt the butter and add the buttermilk or yogurt. Dissolve the espresso powder in the hot water, add to the pan, and bring the mixture just to a boil.
11) Immediately pour the simmering liquid over the confectioners’ sugar in the bowl, and beat till smooth.
12) Pour the warm frosting over the cake. If you wait too ong and the frosting stiffens up, spread it over the cake.
13) Combine the chocolate chips, milk, and corn syrup in a microwave-safe cup. Microwave till the chips soften, then stir till smooth.
14) Drizzle/drip the chocolate over the icing. You can do this while the icing is still warm, or wait till it’s cooled.
Let us know if you make it! I will be if I get my starter to work.
Sarah says
I thought I’d share my multi-purpose sourdough recipe that I now use. I posted it on my blog:
http://innisrecipes.blogspot.com/2009/03/easy-sourdough-recipe.html
I used your tutorial to make my starter and it turned out great. My SIL did as well. We were both so excited to find something so simple-and with pictures! :) We both love our starters now. And I have sent many others to your tutorial as well.
I also loved your monkey bread recipe, so I used my sourdough with it, and it turned out amazing as well! We’ve had it 3 times and can’t get enough. :)
I have used the same basic recipe for pizza, bread, monkey bread, cinnamon bread, hamburger buns and pancakes. We prefer it with half white flour/half starter, so it’s really simple for me.
I just wanted to share and to tell you thank you so much for all you do on the site. I learn so much!
Lois says
I have dabbled with sourdough for several years. Sometimes I have wonderful success, other times utter failures.
One problem I have when the dough is rising in the bowl is that the top surface dries out making a crust on the dough. It’s really hard to pull off. Do you have that problem? One thing I did was put a moist towel over the bowl, and keep spritzing it throughout the day, and that seems to help. Your bread looks great! I’m going to do smaller loaves next time, and see if that helps.
stephanie says
Could you please confirm something for me. In the “Sourdough Recipes for Ya” entry you state (in the 1st pancakes recipe), ‘Set aside 1/2 cup sponge” and then in the Waffles recipe you state “Remove the usual 1/2 starter” . Half a cup seems a very small amount to set aside for the next time and I am wondering if it is actually meant to be half of the amount of the starter as is states in the Waffle recipe.
Not sure which is correct.
Brenna says
Thnk soo much for the sourdough bread recipe! I followed it to a T this week and I have been allowing it to rise for quite some time now. I am going to bake it in the morning.
On question though. Has anyone else’s bread dough become crusty onthe top while it rises? I just peeled my off and continued on. Hope I am not doing anything wrong! :s
God Bless!
Brenna
Laura says
Hmm, I’ve not had mine crust over like that. It does get a little bit dry though. I’m sure yours is just fine. How did it turn out?
Robin says
Question…and I am sorry if this sounds dumb. I was reading through your starter tutorial (I am only on day 2 but I wanted to read through everything anyways) and on day 8 where you make the bread and put the rest of the starter back in the jar and into the fridge, you say to feed it once a week, and when you go to use it, to feed it and set it in a warm place. My question is, if you are not going to bake often but still want to feed it weekly, do you feed it and put it right back into the fridge, or set it in a warm spot first?
Thanks!
Laura says
Feed it, let it sit out a day or so, then put it into the fridge. I actually don’t always remember to feed mine every week and it has done okay!
Kim says
I have made the dough and am ready for the initial rise, but it is late at night. Can I put it in the fridge to do the rising…assuming that it will greatly slow the process, but not halt it??
I am afraid to leave it on the counter for 8+ hours and come back to my kitchen over-run by dough!
Laura says
Ugh, well being behind on emails and comment questions didn’t bode very well for me here (or for you!). SO sorry.
Um, what did you end up doing?!
Kristin W says
I just baked my first two loaves of sourdough! A-MAZ-ING!! It’s so yummy and rose SO well!! I was almost dumbfounded when it worked!! Tomorrow for lunch – Roasted chicken sandwiches on grilled sourdough!
Creative2xmom says
I used this tutorial a couple of weeks ago and love it. I’d like to make the pancakes this weekend, but have a question. It says to remove 1 c. starter for next time. Then then I want to use that starter do I go through the 8 day process again? Or how do I replenish so I have more than 1 c?
Laura says
Simply “feed” your starter one cup of water and one cup of flour per day until you’re ready to use it again and until you have enough starter to make your recipe (while still saving some for future use).
Joyce says
Tried this recipe for the first time and had yum,yummy pancakes for breakfast! So if I want to use it every day or other,( I have a big family)! How do I get my volume up again? So I could bake every day? Or maybe that isn’t possible?
Thanks so much for your wonderful blog!
Laura says
Keep feeding it, and get the batch as big as you need. Maybe start a second batch if you go through it quickly!