I've had my starter for 25+ years, which I made from a recipe in Sunset magazine, a popular publication in California (food, house projects, places to travel). Mine is a milk-based starter, which is apparently not the norm. It is not as thick as what King Arthur seems to have. It does ok with a bit of "neglect"--but it is definitely thicker and more active if I feed it once or twice a week. Since my husband adores my Sourdough cheese crackers and prefers the sourdough pan pizza (adapted from a King Arthur recipe), and I like sourdough breads, it gets used a lot.
I've not tried using it in recipes that don't call for sourdough starter, but I do have to adapt the KAF ones that use starter. I usually need about 1/4 cup more flour per cup of sourdough that their recipes use. To get more of a sourdough taste, it usually helps to give it some
I plan to try adapting this starter in some recipes that require rye starters, etc., for which the recipe authors give their own starter recipes, and which I really do not have room to keep around. I'm sure that it will change the taste, but tasting different is not necessarily a negative.
A year ago, I began following a way of eating that reduced saturated fat to less than 11g per day (and sometimes less). I also incorporated additional whole grains and a variety of beans. With the high cholesterol diagnosis came an osteopenia diagnosis. I've been trying to balance the two, which most dietary advice does not do. I began incorporating some exercise, but not as diligently the past six months. I gradually lost 15 pounds, which was not a goal but a nice side benefit.
It's been a year. My cholesterol was down by 25--even with having the blood drawn after a breakfast of coffee, oatmeal, and a banana. (I didn't know they would draw blood, but the doctor said that particular breakfast would be ok. I'm now at the low end of "high risk" for LDL cholesterol, but all the other numbers are still fine. The doctor said to continue what I've been doing, so I'm hoping that it will come down further. I think that more exercise, more beans, and more fruits and vegetables will bring it down further.
I won't know about progress on bone density until I have another scan. I've incorporated 900mg calcium into my daily diet, since calcium from food is better than supplements, although I still take a 300mg supplement, along with 2000 Vitamin D. (The doctor insists on that.) Walking will help here, as it will with the cholesterol (and the dog loves it). I've also upped the weight bearing exercise.
I appreciate the discussions we have here at Nebraska Kitchen about food and health, and the links people provide to useful articles on nutrition, and the information in some of the Daily Quiz questions. It can be a challenge when the two baking magazines I get regularly, Bake from Scratch and Sift, are so butter-centric. I don't plan to renew Bake from Scratch for that reason. Sift usually has at least some bread recipes that I can use or adapt. Entrees can be a little more challenging, given the prevalence of cheese in the recipes that land in my email in-box, and I also have to ask myself if my husband will eat it, or if it is one that I can make for myself for lunch.
It is an interesting journey, but oh, I miss BLTs in the summertime!
I've used a knife to split both home made and commercial (Wolferman) English muffins, it didn't destroy the holes. However, a fork produces a less smooth surface, so IMHO that's why there are more holes visible.
The simple answer is you can use it in anything that uses yeast, as well as in things that use other forms of leavening. HOW you use it is where the art is. 🙂
Most instructions for maintaining a sourdough starter at home basically go like this:
Divide in two
Throw half out (or find something to do with it)
Feed other half, possibly using some to make bread tomorrow
Most commercial sourdough instructions go like this:
Feed
Divide in two
Use half to make bread
With the former, you have to find things to do with the half you throw out, for example, use it in pancake batter. With the latter, it assume every time you feed it you're also planning on baking with it shortly thereafter.
A sourdough culture is generally most active during the period from a few hours to a day after it's been fed. If you're a commercial baker, you're probably baking sourdough every day anyway, and you have the space available to feed your starter without throwing half of it out.
One exception is if you follow the Chad Robertson's (Tartine Bakery) method. He has you use just 5% of the starter to start the next batch, so it is what he calls a 'young' starter, meaning it isn't as acidic. He also talks about how refrigeration of a starter changes the bacteria composition to favor ones that produce more acid. I doubt that he throws out 95% of his starter in his bakery on a regular basis, so I suspect that the routine he gives for home use is different than the one he uses for mass production.
That is an interesting article. I didn't know that crumpets are cooked only on one side and have holes on top. But you don't just "whip out" a batch of muffins - they take a long time to make and cook. I make a yeast dough muffin. At the English muffin class I took at KAF last year, we were told to have a very wet dough; it helps to develop the big holes. And, also, to not cook them thoroughly, that they would dry out when toasted. But I like mine completely cooked. I have to admit -- I'm a little OCD when it comes to my baked goods. I weigh my dough and use rings. I like my muffins (and buns, etc.) to look perfect, like store-bought! I just don't want them to taste store-bought.
Aaron--I cannot recall if I've made a dough English muffin that is rolled out, then cut with a cutter. I've made a KAF recipe that used rings that was more of a batter, but I never quite got what I wanted in an English muffin. Of course, I did not have good pans (cast iron) at that time. The one I'm using now (see following discussion) is probably between a dough and a batter. They did have excellent rise, and are worth the mess. I will work on fine-tuning what I do. There must be an easier way of getting them divided. The dough/batter is too sticky, I think, for a scoop.
I’ve been dreaming of English Muffins, on which to use a bit of jam left over from a batch of strawberry-blackberry jam that I recently made. It’s a cooler, rainy Tuesday, and I bought new batteries for my infrared heat reader on Sunday, so I pulled out the recipe for Easy Buckwheat Oat English Muffins, which is my favorite. As always, I substituted 12 oz. buttermilk for that much regular milk, then used ¼ cup warm water to proof my yeast. Usually, I substitute honey for sugar, but this time, I decided to use the sugar. I reduced the salt to 1 tsp. and added 2 Tbs. flax meal and 3 Tbs. special dry milk. I replaced the 3 Tbs. of butter with 2 scant Tablespoons of canola oil. I resisted the urge to use the bread hook, which I’ve done in the past, and instead mixed the dough for 5 minutes using the paddle, scaping as I went. I used speed 3 on my Cuisinart stand mixer. (The recipe states, “medium speed.") I let it rise in the mixing bowl. The rise took the full two hours. It’s a very sticky dough. I used farina (cream of wheat) rather than semolina on the tray. I managed to cut the dough into ten pieces, not the twelve specified—and there was no way that I could weigh them. I used a bowl of water to help shape them into the semblance of a disc, then let them rest, covered for 20 minutes. I only have two medium sized griddle pans; one a Le Creuset (probably sold as a crepe pan), and one a Lodge 10-inch griddle pan. I was able to fit three on each. Once the pans came to temperature, I put the flame as low as it would go on both burners. [Major thumbs up here to the gas cooktop on my Wolf!] After 15 minutes, I turned them for another 15 minutes. All but one tested done the first time, and I moved the slacker muffin to a hotter spot and let it go a little longer. I then did the other four—two on each pan. While my English muffins are not perfectly round, they are about 1 ¼-inches high. I’m looking forward to toasting one to have with breakfast tomorrow.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by
BakerAunt.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by BakerAunt.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by BakerAunt.
I made my rye/wheat/semolina buns but I changed up the procedure a little. Last night I took the rye with a pinch of yeast and soaked it with an equal amount of water (3 ounces). I reduced the milk the the same amount and added 2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar to it and let it stand in the fridge overnight. That worked out real well, the buns baked up taller and lighter than before.
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Chocomouse, I'm looking at the brownie recipe and if you added some melted chocolate to them instead of just using cocoa that might help make them fudgy.
After our discussion of ice cream cones and sandwiches I made my own. I made s'more ice cream sandwiches.
A couple of problems/lessons learned.
First, I used both caramel and semi sweet chocolate on the graham crackers. I'm not sure that I needed both but if I do it again I'll either drop the caramel or use bittersweet chocolate. My wife complained they were two sweet but no one else did. I could also could fancy and make salted caramel. Also between heating and cooling the caramel became a little grainy. I could probably add a little corn syrup or maybe some cream to it. It can be more liquid than it was as the chilling will make it hard.
Next, I just melted chocolate and spread it on the caramel coated graham crackers. I think next time I'll make a ganache and spread it. Like the caramel it will harden in the freezer but it will be more pliable.
I used marshmallow spread. I think I need to use marshmallows. And I need a real torch (I think I have one if I can find it) to brown them. My broiler might have worked but they were on parchment and the broiler ignites the parchment.
I need to make my own graham crackers (I used store bought to make this quick) and I need to make my own marshmallows. I need thin, square marshmallows and then I can cut them to fit the graham crackers.
It was cool to make this and there may be a more efficient way to do it but it was a multi-step process, layer various things on the graham crackers.
For lunch on Monday, I made The Simplest Black Bean Burgers, a recipe by Mark Bittman:
https://www.markbittman.com/recipes-1/the-simplest-bean-burgers
I used 14 oz. of black beans that I cooked yesterday, and I used old-fashioned oats. (The recipe says not instant but does not specify quick or old-fashioned.) My only change was to use 2 Tbs. Penzey’s Southwest seasoning in place of 1 Tbs. chili powder. (The recipe does say “or spice mixture of your choice.) I used half of a small onion. These came together well in the food processor without additional water or oats. I used my KAF ¼ cup scoop to make six patties. They held together well when I cooked them in olive oil.
I had one in a sandwich, made with Grape Nuts Bread, mayonnaise and sliced tomato from our garden. No one will ever mistake it for a hamburger, but it is tasty I think that it would be great topped with salsa. When I warm one up tomorrow, I’ll try it with a bit of melted cheese on top. I expect to make the recipe again. I might try adding a bit of tomato paste next time and changing up the spices.
The recipe ticks several boxes for me: low in saturated fat, cholesterol reducing, and healthy for bones.
WE baked all our pies in pastry school in disposable aluminum pans, they had us double-pan some of them if we were filling them with a heavy filling. I've been known to put a disposable pan inside a sturdier one at home.
These days I tend to bake my pies in my Norpro non-stick pans, they really are non-stick!
When they've cooled, I transfer them to another pie pan for cutting, so I don't scratch the non-stick surface. I've got some disposable aluminum ones for that purpose if the pie is leaving the house. They aren't quite the same diameter as the NorPro pan (about 1/4 inch smaller), but the pies fit OK.
I need to do a batch of tomato sauce this afternoon, I've got about 25 pounds of them, mostly fairly small ones that are a pain to try to skin to make whole or diced tomatoes. (And don't even think about trying to concasse them!) So I'll run them through the Roma mill to make sauce, it gets about 98% of the seeds out. I save the seeds and skins that come out the end to throw in beef stock, I should get one or two big bags of seeds and skins that I'll freeze. 25 pounds should get me 4-5 quarts of sauce, it'll go in the freezer, too.
I'll do it after the Cubs game. I spent some time this morning prepping the kitchen.
I’m trying to cook black beans this Sunday morning into afternoon. It’s the first time I’ve done beans on the new gas stove top, so I’m figuring out what constitutes a good low temperature, and I may have had it too low initially. These beans may be problematic, as I found them in a jar that was in a box packed two years ago, then stored in the shed. (I also have some garbanzos and some of Bob’s Red Mill Vegi-Mix that were in sealed glass canisters in the same box. These beans may need longer cooking time because they are old.
Something I read in a book on getting organized was this: If you're at all on the fence about whether you need something close at hand (and if you have space you can dedicate to the task for a few weeks), put it on a table in another room and see if you need it over a period of time, preferably a month or longer.
If you don't find you need it during that time period, then it can go in secondary storage areas or in the 'get rid of' pile. (Obvious exceptions are things that are seasonal needs, like a Santa cake pan.)
Saturday night dinner is a rotisserie chicken (on sale for $4.99), an ear of sweet corn each (we have to eat it while we can!), and microwaved green beans from our garden.
When I was watching a Great British Baking Show "Master Class," I saw Paul Hollywood make Hot Cross Buns. Rather than a frosting, he made a special (non-yeasted?) dough and used it to make the crosses before the bread was baked.
It might be worth a call to those Ukrainian churches to see if anyone is keeping the bread baking tradition alive. Often that gets lost before the younger generation realizes its value and wishes it had asked for the knowledge before it is gone.
