Sucker for Sourdough
You're right. It's not 2020 anymore. People aren't locked in their homes passionately baking sourdough and sharing it with the world. I didn't join the party then, but I have now... and I can see how it became an obsession!
How it started...
So I was innocently scrolling through my Instagram account when I came across Shannon and her Sourdough Schoolhouse account. Shannon and her sister have been long time customers of ours and I have followed her account for a while, but have always been intimidated by most baking - especially bread!
She was teaching people how to start their own starter for free online so naturally I followed along. I'll try anything if it's FREE! I attempted to get my starter going and got impatient as I have been known to do. Thankfully I have a friend who dabbles in sourdough and she was kind enough to share a little dollop of her starter. Once I had that magic in my kitchen the sourdough frenzy was well underway.
I had none of the fancy sourdough baking gear - the dutch oven, the scorer or banneton baskets but I had time and my starter so off I went! Shannon was gracious enough to share her go to bread recipe and even provided step by step videos for how to along the way. This made it SO MUCH EASIER. I followed along, eagerly feeding my new sourdough baby and attempting my first loaves.
I used simple items from my kitchen to make my first batch of magic. Mason jars for the starter and discard, simple mixing bowls for the dough, a sharpened kitchen knife for the scoring and my Our Place Pot to act as the dutch oven for baking. And guess what?! It worked!! The only catch is you shouldn't heat these up past 450 degrees, but that's all I needed! My first attempt was a complete success and my family devoured the 2 loaves in 2 days!
How it's Going...
Since then I have of course gone overboard and purchased my own sourdough baking kit which includes the fancy banneton proofing baskets and scoring blade to help make my bread extra pretty.
And if you have followed along on my Instagram (if you haven't yet, where are you!? 😉 ) you will have seen me sharing some delicious sourdough pretzels. O..M..G.. these things are to die for. I can't make them fast enough. My kids and their friends (and myself) devour these just as fast as I can bake them. The recipe uses that sourdough discard you keep in the fridge. I just found it online and keep getting asked over and over for the recipe so here it is! https://www.thisjess.com/sourdough-discard-soft-pretzels/ It may seem intimidating but it honestly isn't that bad and it is so worth it!
I'm dying to venture out and try some new recipes but so far I can barely keep up with these ones and how fast my family is eating them! So I may wait until they get bored of these and then venture onto to something new.