What are you Baking the Week of September 15, 2024?

[Joan Simpson]

I have had a time getting my sourdough starter going again.I got it going it passed the float test now and have some dough on the counter. We'll see how it turns out sometime tomorrow. The only thing I did different was pour the hooch off instead of stirring back in.I've worked on it for 3 days now.

[Mike Nolan]

There are those who think the presence of hooch in your starter is a good thing and those who think it is a bad thing. I tend to think of hooch as being a characteristic of a starter that is overdue to be fed, so I'm pretty much in the latter camp, but that can mean feeding a starter at least daily, and there are studies and anecdotal incidents that suggest twice-daily may be the optimal schedule. But unless you're a commercial bakery operating 7 days a week, that's just not practical.

Bakeries that take a day or two off every week often report that their starter is sluggish after being idle for over 24 hours.

Refrigerating your starter vs keeping it at room-temperature is another home/commercial bakery dichotomy. There are times in the baking cycle when retardation of dough can be a good thing, but that's a separate issue entirely.

And as I have noted more than once, commercial bakeries do not throw out starter or scramble to find things to make with it, they adjust their feeding schedule so that the feeding occurs several hours before they pull out what they need for the next day's production.

[BakerAunt]

I usually stir it back in, but then I use 2 cups for crackers, and feed it. My best bread was after I had fed it for crackers, then for pizza, then baked bread.

I'm just grateful that we can refrigerate our starters.

[BakerAunt]

There was a half bag of peanut butter chips in the refrigerator with an expiration date of 2015. I tasted one, and they are fine. To use them up, I went internet recipe hunting for a no-butter peanut butter chip cookie. I found "Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (Without Butter or Margarine" from Miriam Pascal at OvertimeCook.com which I thought had possibilities.

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies {Without Butter or Margarine}

Although she says not to use natural peanut butter, I used Santa Cruz naturally crunchy and reduced the oil from 2/4 to 2/3 cups to compensate. I also used white whole wheat flour and added 2 Tbs. Bob's Red Mill milk powder. She used ¾ each of chocolate chips and peanut butter chips but notes that just one type of chips could be used. I used the scan 1 cup that I had on hand. The recipe said to use a "medium" scoop, which is not helpful. I used a Zeroll #30, which is probably larger than that medium, as I ended up with 32 rather than four dozen, so she probably used a smaller scoop. Of course, we love larger cookies. I baked the first tray of a dozen for 12 minutes, and they were perfect. I baked the second tray, also a dozen, for 10 minutes, and they were slightly overdone. I baked the third tray of nine for 9 minutes, and they were perfect. Scott had a warm one from the second batch and gave them a thumbs up. I had one at teatime, and seconded his vote. I will be baking these again. They would be delicious without any peanut butter or chocolate chips.

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