Doughy Delights
From no-knead sourdough to chocolatey zucchini, these breads are sure to please.
March/April 2008
MaryAnna Clemons
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Sourdough Recipe (no-knead)
Grape-Nuts Bread
Old-Fashioned Brown Bread
Boston Brown Bread
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Sticky Buns
Easy Overnight Pecan rolls
Cinnamon Pecan Sticky Buns
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Chocolate Zucchini Bread
Chocolate Zucchini Bread
I’ve been obsessed with sourdough since I was a child. I’ll never forget the moist, warm air surrounding an oven bursting with fresh-baked bread and the tangy scent of sourdough when my mother walked with me through the restaurant where she kept the books. As I grew up, sourdough bread with a sufficiently crispy outer crust – not too hard to eat, but chewy enough to be considered a bit of culinary work– was just an arm’s length away. Imagine my surprise when I moved away from the central coast of California and realized that great sourdough was truly a regional treat.
Sourdough is the oldest form of leavened bread dating back 6,000 years to ancient Egypt. Wild yeast and bacteria (lactobacilli) feeding on a mixture of water and flour formed a bubbling starter that when used to make dough resulted in a bread full of air pockets with a tangy flavor. Starters came and went, but many were kept alive for centuries, if not longer. In 19th-century America, sourdough bread was so important to California miners that they kept their starter close and even slept with it in the winter to prevent freezing. Pioneers traveling West often shed items that no longer seemed worth the trouble to carry; however, their sourdough starter and cast-iron cookers weren’t on that list.
Start your own starter
Creating your own sourdough starter is simple. Take your flour of choice and room-temperature water in equal parts and mix them together in a glass or crockery bowl (start small and add to it each day, 1/4 cup of each is plenty). Be sure the water isn’t too warm or you might end up killing the microbes responsible for initiating fermentation. Although not recommended by all sourdough makers, I add a touch of honey to “feed” the starter, which speeds up the process.
Always use a glass container, preferably with a wide opening, and a wooden spoon. Metal and acid don’t mix well, and you can ruin your starter by storing it in metal.
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