sticky buns

The night before baking, mix together and knead for a few minutes:

1 cup active sourdough starter
1/2 cup milk
1 Tablespoon maple syrup
2 cups all-purpose flour

Flour lightly and set aside, then mix:

3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 Tablespoon kosher salt

Melt 4 Tablespoons butter and spread in a baking pan, then sprinkle half of the sugar mixture over. Soften another 4 Tablespoons of butter.

Roll out the dough into a rectangular sheet about 1/2 inch thick. Spread the softened butter over it, sprinkle the remaining sugar mixture, and roll the dough up into a cylinder. Cut into disks and place them, cut end up, into the prepared baking pan, leaving enough room for them to expand. Cover and set aside to rise overnight.

In the morning, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 20 minutes, reduce the heat to 350, and bake for another 15, or until browned and firm. Place a serving tray over the baking sheet and carefully turn the buns out.

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My mother would use about a quarter the sugar and about half the butter, and they'd still come out too sweet for her; they're a little too sweet for me in this recipe.

Sourdough Hearth Loaf- on YouTube

Last week I made a good loaf of sourdough, using the pizza stone that Kate's parents gave me for Christmas. I also video-recorded (most of) the process, and Kate was kind enough to edit the resulting mess into something more or less watchable for the Mad River Valley Localvores.

Mix together:

1/2 cup mixed grain cereal
1/2 cup cold water

Set aside to soak.

Mix together:

2 1/2 cups active whole-wheat sourdough starter
3/4 cup lukewarm water
1 T maple syrup
3 cups white all-purpose flour

Let sit for twenty minutes or so, then mix in

1 Tablespoon kosher salt

Knead for 10-12 minutes, adding an additional

1/4 cup water

Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover lightly, and let it rise overnight. In the morning, knead in the soaked mixed grains and shape the dough into a round loaf. Flour a cotton towel-- it's fun to use one with a coarse texture that will leave a print on the crust-- and use it to line a medium, shallow basket or bowl. Place the loaf upside-down on the floured towel, cover it lightly (fold the corners over, adding flour if necessary so they won't stick) and leave in a warm place to rise for four or five hours-- I use the oven with the pilot light on.

When the loaf has doubled in volume, take it out of the oven (if that's where it's been rising), put a baking stone on the oven's center rack, and preheat to 500 degrees. Prepare a peel-- a rimless baking sheet, or the bottom side of a cookie sheet-- by sprinkling it thoroughly with cornmeal. When the oven is hot, gently turn the loaf out of the floured towel onto the cornmeal on the peel. Take a razorblade or very sharp knife and score the top of the loaf. With a spray-bottle full of water, open the oven door and spray the walls and floor of the oven to create steam, then quickly slide the scored loaf off of the peel directly onto the preheated bakind stone. The cornmeal should allow the dough to slide easily, all in one piece.

Close the oven door, turn down the heat to 425 degrees, wait 3 minutes and repeat spraying water on the walls and floor of the oven. Close the door, wait another 3 minutes and spray once more. In 45 minutes, check the loaf by tapping the bottom (it should sound hollow). If it's not done give it another ten minutes. When you think it's done, take it out and let it cool, wrapped in a clean cotton towel, on a wire rack.

Sourdough Pancakes

Didn't post this recipe before, I think-- just referenced Sandor Katz, whose recipe it is. But I've eaten enough now that I consider it my recipe too.

This makes enough pancakes for two people (if those people are Kate and me).

Mix together and rest overnight:
1/2 cup sourdough starter
1 cup lukewarm water, or half water, half milk
1 Tablespoon sweetener (syrup? barley malt?)
1 1/4 cups white flour

In the morning, melt
1 Tablespoon butter

and beat in
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a separate bowl, beat the egg white until stiff, mix it into the butter and yolk, and fold everything into the sourdough until just combined. Scoop the batter by quarter-cups into a well-seasoned, hot pan and cook two minutes or so on each side. If you like, sprinkle blueberries into the batter just after pouring it into the pan. Serve hot, with butter and maple syrup.

Better Muffins: "Healthy"

Yesterday's batch came out much better. Kate was guinea pig, and said something like "Well, they taste healthy-- there's not much sugar...." But I thought they were all right: they rose fairly well, came out of the pan easily, and if they weren't very sweet, well, there's always jam. The texture was still a problem-- much more chewy than crumbly-- and the cinnamon needs another boost. I wonder if our cinnamon might be too old. To fix the texture problem next time I'm going to try a little less flour, and make the sourdough mixture less cohesive by thinning it out with beaten eggwhites. They were also small, so I'm boosting everything just a touch.

I think the main problem with the first batch was less the proportions than mixing; I was rushing and didn't follow my own directions. With the second batch I gave myself plenty of time to do all of the labor-intensifying separate mixes that I love so much, the ones that produce piles of extra mixing bowls to wash... yippee! Here are the instructions for next time:

Mix together and let sit overnight:

1 1/4 cup sourdough starter
1 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cup milk
4 Tablespoons maple syrup

In the morning, preheat oven to 400, and butter a muffin tin. Cream together:

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar

Thoroughly beat two egg yolks into the butter mixture. Beat the whites separately, until they're nice and fluffy, and fold them into the bubbly sourdough mixture.

Sift together:

2 cups white flour
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt

Mix the flour and the sourdough by turns into the butter mixture, starting and ending with the flour, and adding milk or flour as necessary to produce a sticky, cohesive batter. Scrape into the muffin tin and bake 20-25 minutes, until brown on top.

Better Sandwich Loaves

This time I made and kneaded the dough just before bed, let it rise overnight for 10 hours, shaped the loaves in the morning and let them rise in the warm oven for 5 hours before baking. Very good texture and flavor, symmetrical rise, generally better. Another change that might have helped the symmetry is that I put the loaves in end-to-end, parallel to the oven door, instead of side-by-side with the ends facing the door; I also used an "envelope" fold to shape them instead of rolling.

First Sourdough Muffins: Bad

Luckily for her, Kate left for work before the sourdough muffins came out of the oven. They were greasy, flat, chewy on the outside, damp on the inside, and salty. Couldn't taste the cinnamon and barely tasted the sugar. Also, they stuck to the pan somehow, despite all that butter.

I'm not sure how to correct all those problems in the next batch. So first I'll decrease everything by half, just to make it less of a gamble. I'll add more flour at the end (this time I barely added any) and try to make it easier to mix the batter smoothly and quickly by thinning out the butter mixture and skipping the eggwhite-beating step. So:

Mix together and let sit overnight:

1/2 cup sourdough starter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
2 Tablespoons maple syrup

In the morning, preheat oven to 400, and butter half of a muffin tin. Cream together:

5 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sugar

Thoroughly beat in one whole egg. Sift together:

1 cup white flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

Gradually fold the sourdough and the flour by turns into the butter-and-egg mixture, adding milk or flour as necessary to produce a sticky, cohesive batter. Scrape into the muffin tin and bake 20-25 minutes, then let cool on a wire rack for another 5 minutes before popping them out.

We'll see.

Sourdough Muffins? First Try

1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup milk
1 cup whole-wheat flour
3 Tablespoons maple syrup

Mix together in a bowl and leave overnight.

In the morning, preheat the oven to 400, butter a 12-muffin baking tin, and cream together

3/4 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

and beat in

2 egg yolks.

Beat the whites separately till nearly stiff, then fold into the butter mixture along with the sourdough starter and up to

2 cups sifted flour.

Scoop into the prepared tin and bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 5 more minutes and then remove the muffins to cool the rest of the way on a wire rack.


Once I've tried this I'll post again with corrections.