Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Diminishing Returns


While searching for something cheap to download onto my Kindle, I re-discovered a mystery series by an acquaintance.
Unfortunately, much of it revolves around food. My brain, which nowadays seems to expend a lot of gray cells on kitchen events, thought, “Bread!! I need to make some bread!”
     I used to make bread all the time. Standard white, oatmeal, whole wheat, Boston brown bread steamed in a can, even bagels. But I’ve never successfully made sourdough. This would be the perfect time since sourdough is like inviting a particularly high maintenance guest to visit for a week. Each day you have to tend to the sourdough starter, removing some, feeding it more flour and water, tucking it away until the next feeding. Then finally it reaches that ultimate state that says “Bake me.”


          The first three days were pretty exciting. 





      




    







 



      The evening of the fourth, though, I suspect I left it sitting too close to the stove. The magical bubbles were gone.



          I finally had to sacrifice the whole project to the Florida utilities. Probably just as well. If there’s one thing our waistlines don’t need right now is a big slab of warm sourdough straight from the oven.



          Speaking of which, it probably wasn’t a good thing that I made a chocolate pie last night. (And did you know that CVS carries whipped cream?)

14 comments:

  1. Years ago I happily made bread but sourdough hadn't crossed my consciousness. I have a little bread left (and no yeast). Thinking, thinking, thinking... (but probably too lazy to do more than that).

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    1. But there you go! Sourdough is made without yeast. The starter is just flour and water, which somehow over time morphs into something that leavens the bread. I failed, but now you can give it a shot! ;0)

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  2. Mmm, chocolate pie. MUCH better than the virtual rice cake handed over by another blogger.

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  3. I've never been able to make bread, sourdough or other types. I tried for a full year when the kids were little and there was only three of them. So much wasted flour :(

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  4. From my #2 daughter who is also giving sourdough a try: Might not be dead. I thought mine had died after day 4, but did a bunch of serious googling and found out that sometimes when it looks dead, it isn't. And now after 7 days it is making a comeback. She sent me an email too with the text she wrote at facebook about it, would you like me to copy the text here too?

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  5. I'll put the information on my own blog.

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  6. I just read a post HERE which may explain your problem.

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  7. I used to make bread, too. And yeah I hear you about not needing warm bread from the oven. That pie looks really delicious. :-)

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  8. Nice try! I have never tried the sourdough starter...it would be an adventure! Nice pie!

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  9. Oh no! Sorry you had to sacrifice the starter. I'm not familiar with the whole process of bread-making. Not something I ever tried. (Beyond no-yeast breads like banana bread.)

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    1. Yeast breads are surprisingly easy - they mostly just ask that be around to wait for them to rise.

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