Post Blizzard Breakfast: Sourdough Buttermilk Pancakes

So we finally got the snow that I have been waiting for. It wasn't bad in the AM so I decided to go to work. The ground has been so warm that the snow initially melted as it hit the ground. We monitored the roads throughout the morning and they didn't look so bad. After a few hours, the ground cooled down and the snow started coming down quicker than the ground could melt. I think we waited too long to close the office. I sent the email to close at 1:00 pm but as I sent the email, I turned around to look outside and I saw that the weather had turned around. I left at noon, right as the blizzard was picking up steam.

Ever try to drive in a blizzard in a rear wheel drive car? It is a lot of fun. I got stuck going up a slight incline. I also got stuck as I was trying to pull in the garage. There was zero visibility. I was not a happy camper. I was so traumatized that I didn't even spend the snow day baking. I threw together a quick mac n cheese for lunch and a quick chicken noodle soup for dinner.

As I was getting ready for bed, I was thinking about breakfast. It was feeding time for the sourdough starters. The discard was perfect for making pancakes. I also had a half gallon of buttermilk in the fridge. I made sourdough pancakes a few weeks back but I've been wanting to try them with buttermilk instead of regular milk.

The night before: Empty your sourdough starter in a large bowl and stir in one cup of water. (This is assuming that you only have about 1 cup of stored starter like I do.) When dissolved, mix in a cup of flour. Stir to aerate, cover, and let stand at room temp over night. (I take this opportunity to clean out my starter storage container.)

The next day: Scoop out one cup of batter into your starter storage container and return to fridge. Mix in 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk to the remaining batter. Add 1 cup flour, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and pinch of salt. Mix gently. Just before cooking, gently incorporate 1 teaspoon baking soda. .

I like my pancakes with real maple syrup.

The bf likes his pancakes with strawberry syrup.

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Sourdough Bread Take Two

This time around I made it with Aki the organic rye berry and pineapple juice starter. (By this time Aki had been converted to a white starter.)

1 1/2 cups of starter
1/2 cup rye flour
3 cups unbleached AP flour (maybe more or less depending on the hydration of the starter)
1/4 teaspoon bread machine yeast (for insurance)
1.5 cups water
3 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons salt

Sunday night:
1. Take a little starter and feed it about 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 tablespoon rye flour and water. I do it approximate and eyeball the consistency. I left it out about four hours at room temperature, refrigerated it overnight, and then took it out to monitor. The reason why I did this was because on Sunday morning I threw out most of the starter and fed it in the morning. I didn't allow the starter to double. I only left it out a few hours and then stuck it in the fridge. Later that night I had an urge to make sourdough and my starter was not exactly ready to for another feeding.

Monday evening 6pm
2. I poured the starter into the bowl of my Kitchenaid mixer. I added slightly warmed water and whisked it until it was a liquidy.
3. I added honey and whisked while the water was warm.
4. I added 1/4 teaspoon of yeast for insurance. I wanted to make sure the bread rose since the I didn't feed the starter correctly. I was more interested in the taste of the bread than in remaining a wild yeast purist.
5. I added the rye flour and mixed.
6. I slowly added AP flour a cup at a time until the dough was stiff enough to handle. The dough was still fairly moist. I read that larger holes are achieved from wetter doughs but you often get a flatter bread as a result. How to compromise? I baked it in a cast iron skillet so it wouldn't spread out more than the perimeter of the skillet.
7. Knead for about 4 minutes on setting 2 of the Kitchenaid.
8. Let it sit for about 30 minutes covered in the mixing bowl.
9. Add salt and knead another 4 minutes.
10. Place in an oiled boil that is flat and wide enough to allow folding without having to remove it from the bowl.
11. Let the dough ferment at room temp for 2 1/2 hours with folds at 50 and 100 minutes.
12. Shape the dough into a nicely rounded boule and divide into smaller pieces to make smaller boules. I did one big one in a 9 inch cast iron skillet lined with parchment. If making several loaves, divide dough and then let it rest about 20 minutes before shaping.
13. After shaping, cover dough and let rise for 1 1/2 hours at room temp and then refrigerate for up to 16 hours. I shaped, let it rise for 1 1/2 hours, and refrigerated the entire cast iron skillet. I covered with a large plastic bowl. I don't like to use plastic wrap much and avoid it whenever possible.
14. In the morning, preheat oven to 475 degrees. While the oven is preheating, take the dough out of the refrigerator. Also boil a pot of water in an oven-proof pan and fill a spray bottle with water.
15. When oven is preheated and water is boiled, put the pot of water on the first shelf of the oven. Bake the bread on the second shelf. Turn down the heat to 450 degrees. Generously spray the loaf with water about every five minutes for the first 20 minutes of baking. The pot of water should boil during the entire baking process.
16. Bake for about 30-40 minutes. (Depends on the size of your loaves.)
17. Let cool before slicing. (Something I never do.)

Loaf right out of the refrigerator.

I wanted a little more blistering. The blisters are present but really small. I guess I have to refrigerate it longer?

I never wait for the bread to cool before slicing.

I think the dough was a little too wet because the bread was too moist and almost gummy. Not gummy like the no-knead bread but definitely a little gummier than I would like. After the bread cooled, the gumminest went away and was perfect. The entire loaf was gone by the end of the day.

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Carl Griffith's Oregan Trail Sourdough Starter

I received Carl Griffith's 1847 sourdough starter a few weeks ago. I was getting ready to leave town and did not want to activate it and leave. Taking the starter on the trip with me was not an option. I was tired all of last week and actually contemplated holding off on activating it since I have my other two starters in the refrigerator. They take up too much room. I actually don't keep a huge amount of starter on hand. I keep just a few tablespoons and allow it to rise. I think I can actually move them from the quart containers into smaller containers.

On a whim I decided to activate Carl's starter. I ran out of my quart containers. I thought it was impossible but it is possible. I just had soupgroup and I just made a huge pot of pho and froze the extra soup broth in the containers. I am curious how the Oregon Trail starter tastes. Barry (aka starter B) rose really well, smelled great, but I wasn't thrilled with the flavor. I got a really sour bread but the flavor was flat. I didn't get anything else. Maybe it needs to mature a little more. I baked with it when it was only a few weeks old. The pancakes were yummy but I think that was because of the milk and the other ingredients I used.

Aki (aka starter A) was turned into a loaf today. It is sitting in my refrigerator. I will bake it in the morning. I discard most of it on Sunday morning and fed it. I threw away part of it because I wasn't really planning on baking bread. More on Aki Sourdough loaf on a different post. Back to Carl.

I mixed the dried starter with bottled water, stirred, and stirred some more to get the particles to dissolve. It is pretty much like concrete. I let it sit a while. It took a while before it all dissolved. I smelled it. It already has a sour-ish smell. Not the good sour smell but the early stages of the starter smell.

After sitting for fifteen minutes and I still had huge chunks.

Finally after about half an hour the bits of dried starter started to dissolve. I then added bread flour for a thick pancake-like batter.

About 36 hours after reviving. The starter was all bubbly when I woke up in the morning. It looks like a metal spoon in the container but it is actually a plastic spoon that looks like metal.

I didn't throw away half before feeding because I was giving half of it away. It still more than doubled. The starter smells really yummy!

It is definitely easier to get a starter going with dried starter. I have some of Barry dried. I need to dry Aki and the Oregon Trail starter just in case something happens. I think I have too much Barry starter. I need to start giving some away.

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Sourdough Bread

This is the first sourdough loaf from Barry the starter. The bread tasted really pretty good. I was a little worried that it wouldn't be sour. I didn't like the shape. I was frustrated this morning so I kinda just let it bake. I still have to perfect this loaf.

First I refreshed the starter. I took a cup of starter, added a cup of bread flour and a cup of water.


I let it bubble up for about 4-5 hours and then I refrigerated it. Below is the starter the next morning after taking it out of the fridge.
There are quite a few steps in between. I didn't take pictures of all the steps. I mixed the refreshed starter with about 3 cups of bread flour and 1 cup of water. I mixed it up and kneaded it for about 10 minutes. I let it sit for about 30 minutes and then added the salt and kneaded for another 10 minutes. I gathered it into a ball and covered it. I left to get my hair cut. When I came back the dough had some bubbles. I gently folded the dough every hour or so for the next five hours. I then gathered it into a ball and then put it into a basket lined with a towel that I dusted generously with flour. I left it in the cold garage overnight. I baked it in the morning.

Below is the finished bread.

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Sourdough Pancakes

These pancakes are soooo yummy! I think they are replacing my usual pancake recipe. My usual recipe requires separating the egg whites from the yolks, whipping to medium peaks, and then carefully folding the egg whites into the rest of the batter.

I didn't really follow a recipe. I took 2 cups of starter (I had a miscalculation when I built the starter for a different recipe and ended up with extra starter) added some whole milk (I bought whole milk for baking) whisked it all together. I then added more flour to get the right consistency. I added sugar and baking soda. I didn't measure. I sort of just eyeballed everything. I even forgot vanilla and it still tasted really good. Serve with real maple syrup.

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Sourdough Starter: Aki and Barry

I'm growing two pets. I 'm hoping that these two will live forever and be passed down to my grandchildren's grandchildren. I'm not sure which of these two will survive and I'm not sure if I will have more pets to nurture.

I don't know why but all of a sudden I wanted to make a sourdough starter. I've never started one before and I've never baked any sourdough bread before. All I know if I like the taste of sourdough. I tend to just buy it or eat it when it is served at a restaurant. I did some online research. I could get some dried sourdough starter but I am an impatience person. I decided to capture the wild yeast on my own. I also sent for some free Oregon Trail starter from friends of Carl. It will take up to six weeks to get the free starter.

I'm testing out two methods. The first method (A aka Aki) is from a woman on the freshloaf.com discussion board and uses a mixture of rye, wheat, and pineapple juice. The second method (B or Barry) is a more traditional method of wheat flour and water.

Day 1 (January 26, 2009):

I decided on using organic hard red winter wheatberries that I purchased from Vitamin Cottage a couple weeks ago. I read that freshly milled flour works best since a lot of the yeast spores are on the outside of the grain. Why do I happen to have wheatberries at home when I don't grind my own flour? I like the taste of cooked wheatberries with maple syrup.

I ground my wheatberries in my little Cucina Bella Rocket multi-purpose machine. It is like a Magic Bullet machine but prettier. I've used it for smoothies, flax seeds, anise seeds, nuts...

I started off with just water and ground wheatberries. Later I read about the pineapple juice and decided to experiment but I didn't take updated pictures. I added pineapple juice to Aki and then started Barry with ground wheatberries, bread flour, and water.

Day 2 (January 27, 2009):

Since I didn't see much activity in the morning, I went out and bought rye berries (and also rye flour). I got the rye flour first and then stopped by a second store and found rye berries. I did the same thing and ground it in my Cucina Bella.

24 hours: Starter A (Aki). A few hours after adding the rye. I see little bubbles on the surface. It smells like bread dough with a faint tropical scent.

24 hours: Starter B (Barry). Still no activity. Smells good to me but maybe it is just me. I like the smell of flour and water.

Day 3 (January 28, 2009):

36 hours: Aki still has just a few bubbles. Scent is pleasant.

Aki side view. It hasn't increased in volume.

36 hours: Barry has really forged ahead of Aki. I was surprised to see all the bubbles. Barry's bubbles are bigger than Aki's. Barry also is starting to smell really bad. I don't know how to describe it. Maybe like sour milk. It is not intolerable just yet but I have a feeling it will start to get really bad. According to my research on the internet, this is where the bad bacteria takes over. It will get really big. (If you look at the picture below of the side view, you can see that it has increased in volume to about the same size as Aki. When I went to bed last night, Aki was twice the volume of Barry. I used more flour in Aki.) After a while the bad bacteria will start to produce lactic and acetic acid and will kill the bad smelly bacteria. The starter will shrink and look dead. But I can't give up. Eventually something called lactobacillus will take over and I will have a nice symbiotic culture of lactobacilli and wild yeast. I won't have lactobacillus sanfranciscensis, the name of the strain found in San Francisco sourdough. But I will have some sort of lactobacilli; probably a mix of the flora of where the grain was grown and lactobacillus denverisinensis (I totally made up this word).

36 hours: Barry has doubled in volume in the last 12 hours.

Aki 48 hours: Approximately five hours after today's feeding with 2 tablespoons of organic rye flour.


Barry 48 hours: Approximately five hours after feeding with 2 tablespoons of organic wheat flour. Barry went flat. No bubbles. No signs of life. Even the awful stench he had earlier in the day had disappear. If I wasn't home sick today, I probably would have missed all the action. I gave Barry some aeration just as Peter Reinhart suggested. I hope this will help him out. I must not give up. It just means that the bad bacteria leuconostoc has finally killed itself off and I must wait for the good bacteria to establish itself. The byproducts of the leuconostoc bacteria created an acidic environment that the good bacteria will thrive in.

Day 4 (January 29, 2009): No am shots. I checked them in the morning before work and they looked the same. Not much progress. I took the pictures below prior to feeding. I'll leave them alone and check again to see if I see anything exciting happen. This whole experiment is taking a lot of my time. I have to keep track of the pictures. I'm glad I am blogging as I go because I do not know if I can keep the pictures straight if I decided to blog at the end of the experiment. I will be so upset if this fails.

Approximately 72 hours: Aki doesn't look like she has developed many more bubbles. This picture was taken prior to the evening feeding. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong. Aki should be producing more bubbles.

Approximately 72 hrs: Barry has a few big bubble holes underneath the layer of liquid on top. The liquid has separated from the gooey mass. I want to see more action.
Side view of Barry at 72 hours. He has bubbles throughout. I couldn't get a good side picture of Aki but there wasn't much happening on the side.

Day 5 (January 30, 2009): Not too much going on today. Last night I felt that I was not feeding the starters enough. I don't want too much of each starter so as I added more and more flour each day, the amount grew. However, I was not feeding it double the food each day. I was only sticking with about three tablespoons of flour. So I decided to scoop out 1/4 cup of each into a new container and feed both with a quarter cup flour. I kept the rest of the old starter in their containers just in case it didn't work. Not much was going on this morning. Not much was going on when I got home. I fed both when I got home tonight. The feeding was a little late. I'll check on them just before going to bed.

Aki

BarryDay 6 (January 31, 2009): I'm starting to feel like the only activity is from the bacteria. I pretty much only kept a little of the original and fed it more flour. I stopped the pineapple juice. I feel the bubbles are from bacteria and not from the yeast.

Aki has a few bubbles but mainly from me aerating it.

Barry seems a little more active with bigger bubbles.Another picture of Barry but this time was a night picture.

Day 7 (February 1, 2009): I didn't take any pictures today. It just looks like batter right now. I fed them in the morning. Later that night I decided to go for a stiffer starter. I used less water.

Day 8 (February 2, 2009): I thought that by reducing the liquid, I would get some rise. I read that a liquid starter doesn't double. I converted to a firmer starter. I see a couple bubbles in Barry but that is it. The bubbling doesn't break the surface. When I got home today, Barry was a little more liquid and flat. When I make a stiff starter, I cannot really get it flat and smooth. I started to use pineapple juice again.


Day 9 (February 3, 2009): I'm so excited! This morning when I checked the starters they were both bubbly. Barry even increased in volume! I fed both with flour and bottled water because that was what I had upstairs. I left both pretty thick. When I came upstairs at about 6 pm, they both increased in volume and turned fairly liquid. Barry even doubled himself. I took a whiff of Barry and when I did I knew that some magical had happen. Barry's smell had changed entirely. It is developed and full of different fragrance notes. I can smells the difference between Aki and Barry. Aki smells like how Barry smelled earlier in the day.

When I stirred Barry, he let out some gas but re-inflated himself up quickly. He no longer had the thick pancake batter consistency but more like yeasted dough. When I dip the chopstick or a spoon in to stir, I can see the strands. He was nice an airy. Aki is falling behind a bit. I have a good feeling she will do just fine but she is just not as developed as Barry. I dumped out half of each starter and fed them bread flour and pineapple juice. I don't weigh or do exact measurements. I just eyeball it.

I'm not sure if I am getting the days correct. It has been a week and a day since I began this process but I counted the first day as day 1 instead of day 0. So now I think we are actually on day 8 and not day 9.

Aki:

Barry:

Barry side view: I marked the container with some scotch tape to see where I started.

Day 10 (February 4, 2009): I took Barry to work with me today. I wanted to test out a different feeding schedule. I've been feeding both about every 12 hours. It was getting too much. When I woke up this morning, Barry was more than double his volume. I took Barry and some flour to work with me and he sat on my desk all day. At about 2:00, Barry was triple/quadrupled in volume. I read some more about feedings. One freshloaf poster said that she waited until a little after the peak to feed her starter. After peaking, the starter will start to cave in in the middle. I took out half and put into another container for a co-worker. I sent him home with some instructions. I didn't feed Barry until the 24 hour mark.

Barry smells really good. I can really tell a difference because my pineapple/rye starter is still a little behind. It smells fine and I can tell there is something happening but the smell completely changes when the starter is ready. It smells sour yet sweet at the same time. I don't know how to describe the smell other than the smell of a good ferment. It smells a little like Odwalla apple juice a few hours after if has been feed. The smells then changes to a little more sour but with sweet notes. The starter also feels alive. When I stirred it down and gave some away, the starter continued to grow. The smells changed slightly as the starter aged during the day. It still smelled good but a little more pungent. I fed both a little past 6:00 pm. I just checked (about 2.5 hours) and Barry is almost doubled again. Aki (the pineapple/rye) has bubbles but no noticeable rise yet. I suspect that Aki will soon transform.

This is a picture of the starter after a feeding around 6:00 pm.

This is the starter about 2.5 hours after feeding. It has doubled. It continued to increase through the night and into the morning. I experimented and tried to not feed it every 12 hours. I took Barry to work with me in order to make my observations. I notice the peak is about 18-19 hours after feeding and then it starts to shrink again. It is much happier with twice a day feedings so I've been doing that.
February 6, 2009. I feed Barry and put him in the refrigerator. He is nice and strong so it was time to stop wasting flour. I'll bring him out a day or two before baking. I'm not keeping too much on hand so I'll have to build it a few days before using.

February 8, 2009. Aki (the rye and pineapple starter) finally has some faint signs of a starter. The smell is starting to turn in the right direction. She was able to turn the stiff consistency into a more liquid consistency. She also increased in volume. I didn't feed her on Saturday at all. I fed her on Friday evening and ignored her on Saturday. I remembered to check on Sunday morning and it wasn't rancid as I expected it to be. I was ready to toss the entire contents.


So this experiment was to test out some of the methods for sourdough starter on the internet. Below are some assumptions on the internet:

- Yeast is more prevalent on rye. I didn't notice much difference between using rye or wheat. Barry, the wheatberry & unbleached flour combination is doing much better than the rye. I've even weaned the rye starter off of the rye by slowing decreasing the amount of rye used in each feeding.
- Yeast is more prevalent on organic whole grains. I started both with whole grains. For some reason I was not convinced that the little yeasties survived being milled and stored in sacks for the last few weeks or months. I thought my best luck was on the hull of freshly milled flour.
- Pineapple helps maintain the pH that good lactobacillus thrives in and discourages the growth of bad bacteria. The pineapple starter never developed a bad smell. The plain water starter only smelled bad for less than a day. After the smell, it sorta went dormant for a few days but when it came back, it came back immediately. The pineapple starter never really had too many transformations. It is timid and quiet. The bubbles are small. It is actually pretty slow to develop. It is really slow to develop. Almost twice as long as the water starter. With the water starter, I saw a transformation over night.
- Potato water attracts wild yeast. I didn't use any potato water or potato flakes. I didn't want to have another starter to watch over. Two is plenty.
- Wild yeast is found on grapes and other fruit. I'm not sure where I would find wild grapes at this time of year in Denver. I was also not convinced that the yeast on grapes is the kind of yeast I wanted. I read that it is a different strain that will eventually be killed off by the sourdough yeast. I even read about a woman who took a leaf cutting from an oak tree, soak the cutting and soaked it in water and used the water for her starter. I thought "weird".
- Yeast is captured in the wild air. I began this in January. Although this year's winter is a little mild and some days temps actually get to 70 degrees, I was not planning on leaving my container outside, exposed to the elements. It could potentially freeze. I live in a neighborhood where we don't have private outside spaces. Everything is shared. We have a lot of dogs and kids in the neighborhood. I wasn't sure what kind of wild cultures I would be capturing. I kept the starter in an extra bedroom that no one has ever really lived in. I also have an air purifier to capture all the wild microns in the air. I'm convinced that the yeast was on the grain and not in the air.

What I learned:
- Patience: You must be very patient with this. It helped that I was busy these past few weeks so I was only able to check in on them periodically. Most of the time I was either at work, out, or sleeping.
- Must not lose heart: A few days into this and when nothing happens, it is difficult to continue to nurture and feed the darn things but it you persevere, one day you will be rewarded with something magical.
- Less is more: You don't need fancy here. Remember that people have been doing this for a long long time and they did not have anything fancy. Pineapple juice is not necessary. I don't think it hurts anything (well maybe just slow it down a bit).

Next is the sourdough bread. I have dreams of making sourdough loaves, sourdough english muffins, sourdough pancakes, sourdough pizza crust...the endless possibilities. With just a little patience, I may never have to buy yeast again...well maybe for some recipes.

I dried some Barry starter on one of the plastic lids of my corningware. I spread out a thin layer of the flour paste the night before. I woke up in the morning and the mixture was almost dried and the coolest thing happened - the thin layer bubbled up. See the big bubbles of dough? It is amazing!

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