Baking sourdough bread

When I was a youngster, I enjoyed reading books about American pioneer families, and I have always remembered a story about a family whose fire had gone completely out in the middle of a snow storm. A neighbour woman trudged through the dangerous storm carrying embers from her own fire in a cast iron pot and delivered them to the family to help them start a new fire from her smouldering embers.

After reading that story, I told my grandmother all about it, and she turned it into a lesson about sharing and broadened the meaning by explaining that pioneer families also shared the yeast starter for bread. Without the starter, which she called sponge, there would have been no bread baking.

None of that bread baking story mattered to me until I was a young wife in the 1970s, and one of my farm wife neighbours gave me a cup of sourdough bread starter. I followed her instructions and fed it with more flour, sugar and milk; within a couple weeks, I had my own version of that pioneer loaf of bread. I stood in my kitchen, recalling my grandmother’s story thinking of the hardships of the kind of life that did not include the ability to buy a loaf of bread at the supermarket.

I kept my sourdough yeast starter going for three years, baking bread each week and gaining the pounds that went along with it.

Although sourdough bread baking dates to the times of early Egyptians, it is the American Old West that is most often discussed when studying its history. According to information from www.foodtimeline.org, gold prospectors in 1850s California and 1890s Yukon protected their stash of sourdough bread starter as closely as they protected their stash of gold. They were sustained by their sourdough bread, flapjacks and biscuits. San Francisco was the central location for California gold mining and was the point of departure for the ships carrying miners to the Alaskan Klondike Gold Rush. We shouldn’t be surprised that the first sourdough bread bakery, the Boudin Bakery, opened in 1849 in San Francisco and is still producing a French version of the bread today.

You can be a sourdough bread baker. It is really very easy. Today, I’m sharing the recipe for the starter sponge and once you have made that, you can bake breads, biscuits, cakes, cookies and muffins once a week, using the yeast starter. I’ve developed a series of recipes, one of which will be included on this page on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month.

Today, I’ve included the recipe for Lemon Zinger Hot Rolls, so when your starter sponge is 7 days old, you’ll be able to bake and enjoy these treats.

Sourdough Friendship Bread Starter Sponge

2 tablespoons white sugar
1/3 cup warm water
2 packages active dry yeast
2 cups milk
1 cup white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour

Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of sugar and the dry yeast over the warm water. Let this stand for 10 minutes until the sugar and yeast dissolve and it begins to bubble. Mix this yeast combination with milk, white sugar and flour. Mix it well and put it in a glass or plastic container, which has a lid. Cover it and let it stand on the kitchen counter for 24 hours. Remove the lid and stir the sponge. Cover the container, and place it in the refrigerator. You should stir the sponge daily, always using a plastic or wooden spoon. Never use a metal container or spoon. If you forget one day to stir the sponge, don’t despair; it still works.

On the seventh day, the sponge is ready to be used for baking. You will remove 1 cup of the sponge to use in your baking recipe, but you always have to feed the sponge when you remove some of it. So, on that day, remove the cup of starter, but replace it by adding 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of milk and ½ cup sugar to the starter combination. Stir it well; cover it and put it back in the refrigerator.

Now you have started the process all over again, so you stir it daily and on the seventh day, take out your cup to use in a recipe. Feed the original batch of sponge again with 1 cup of four, 1 cup of milk and ½ cup of sugar. If you do this every seven days, you can keep your starter sponge going forever!

Lemon Zinger Hot Rolls

1 packet of active dry yeast
3 tablespoons canola oil
1½ cups warm water
1 cup of Friendship Bread Starter
1 cup of all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
4 additional cups of all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons lemon infused olive oil *
Canola oil for to grease the bowl

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add canola oil. Let this stand for a few minutes until it is bubbly. In a large mixing bowl, combine the yeast mixture with 1 cup of the Friendship Bread Starter. Blend in 1 cup of flour, ½ teaspoon of salt and 2 teaspoons of sugar. Cover this and let it stand in a warm place for approximately 1½ hours, until it is doubled in size.

Knead in another 4 cups of flour and knead for a few minutes until the dough forms a smooth ball. While you are kneading the dough, add 2 tablespoons lemon infused-olive oil to it. Put a big drizzle of canola oil in the bowl you are going to use to let the bread rise, then turn the ball of dough in the oil until it is coated all the way around. Cover and let rise again until double. This may take 2 hours.

Divide into 24 rolls; place in an oiled baking dish; cover and let rise for 30 more minutes. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 25 minutes. While still hot, brush the tops with melted butter to form a soft top crust.

Tip: I let my bread rise in a warm oven. I pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees then turn it off, but I leave the oven light on because it generates constant heat. Place your covered dough in the oven, close the door and let it rise.

* Note: If you can’t find lemon-infused olive oil, use regular olive oil and add a half teaspoon of lemon extract to it before you knead it into the dough

Bread Making with Bill & Sheila
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