Intro to Yeast Baking - Notes/Syllabus for an online class

In a couple of weeks, I'll be teaching Intro to Yeast Baking at Etsy School. This is everything you need to know to take my one session class.

Materials:
all purpose flour
yeast
salt
milk (or powdered milk is my preferred method)
butter
sugar
1 egg
brown sugar
cinnamon
powdered sugar
(see Class Session section for vegan substitutes)

dutch oven or baking pan or baking sheet (no-knead bread)
9X13 baking pan or two cake rounds or pie plates (cinnamon rolls)

pro-tip - plain (not mint!) dental floss is great for cutting the cinnamon rolls. A serrated knife will work too.

Homework:
The day before, stir up a batch of Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread. You're just going to the end of step 1 "Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees."

About 2 hours before class, go through step 3 of the directions. Don't stress if you only have 30 minutes or whatever, it's pretty forgiving. And I just use a lidded giant salad bowl instead of this cotton towel nonsense.

About 20-30 minutes before class, preheat your oven, with your baking container inside, to 450 degrees.

This is optional - but please let me know ahead of time if you're going to do it, and if you want to see how mine comes out even if you don't.

Class session:
We'll start class by throwing the no-knead bread in the oven. While it bakes, we'll make and assemble cinnamon rolls!

(Vegan version:
replace the butter with Earth Balance or your favorite other margarine
water instead of milk
1/3 c applesauce instead of egg)

If you don't have a rolling pin, a wine or beer bottle or drink glass or similar will get the job done.

You can either make the cinnamon rolls right away (after your oven has cooled down a bit!) or freeze the assembled pans to make later. If you freeze them, take them out the night before to let them rise and then bake them for breakfast.

I suggest a super simple icing - 1 c powdered sugar, add enough water/milk/apple cider/egg nog to make it sort of a liquid.

Granola Bar Experiment - In Progress

Based on this recipe, with some inspiration from this one

4.5 oz peanut butter
1/3 c brown sugar
1 medium banana, peeled and mashed (about 4oz or 1/2 c)
4 oz applesauce
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 c rolled oats
1/3 c roasted, salted pumpkin seeds
1/3 c sweetened shredded coconut
1/3 c flax seeds
1/2 c roasted, salted sunflower seeds
1/2 c raisins
1/2 c dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350
Line 8" x 8" pan with parchment
Mix all ingredients and spread evenly in pan
Bake 30-35 minutes - it'll start to brown around the edges.

So this is... just ok. I don't object to anything about it in particular, and I definitely like that you can taste the banana and peanut butter. I'm thinking I might include almonds next time, maybe instead of the pumpkin seeds. And if I want to be sure I'll be happy to eat it, I bet replacing the fruit with chocolate chips would work well.

It's a little crumbly, but it doesn't really upset me. Maybe toasting the oats first would give it better flavor?

I'm also wondering if I might make it in a 9" x 13" pan, and reduce the baking time - that should give me thinner bars, more like what we're used to getting commercially.

Any ideas?

Loaded Blondies

Based on Blondies with Chocolate Chips and Walnuts 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8" x 8" pan with parchment paper.

1 stick butter, melted 1/2 c brown sugar 1/4 c sugar	Mix together
1 egg 1 tsp vanilla	Add and mix well - fluff that egg!
1 c flour 1/4 tsp baking powder 3/4 tsp salt	Add and mix until just combined
1/2 c chocolate chips 1/4 c shredded, sweetened coconut 1/4 c chopped walnuts	Add and mix in
1/2 c chocolate chips 1/4 c chopped walnuts	Spread batter into pan, sprinkle over the top

Bake for 30-35 minutes.
After fully cooled, cut into 16 squares.

(Vegan!) Applesauce Cake

I didn't take a picture, but we ate more than half of it at Women Who Hack today, and the recipe was requested.

1/2 c oil
1 1/2 c sugar (sometimes I make these scant half cups as I'm measuring)
1 1/2 c applesauce
2 c flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 handfuls of raisins

45 minutes at 350 degrees in a greased bundt pan.

My actual recipe just says "spices" but the cinnamon/cloves/nutmeg combo above is what I used this time.
It's great with vanilla or cream cheese frosting. It's great plain. You can keep all this stuff in your pantry, especially if you can find canned applesauce (it uses just under a can worth.)

How Pasta Causes Biscuits

I have a few recipes that I keep supplies for on hand all the time. This Baked Ziti is one of them. Of course, you have to make a few substitutions for this - I use dried basil, and I was using powdered milk as a sad stand in for the cream. (I also use the pre-diced canned tomatoes. But that's because I'm lazy.) Since moving to Portland, I've been able to make a better version because Trader Joe's carries shelf stable heavy cream. But my baked ziti only uses half the box! The first few times, I just stuck the other half in the fridge for a week and hoped inspiration would strike. It finally did! Last night, I suddenly remembered there was such a thing as cream biscuits.

And here is a scaling down of the recipe I used and some notes, so that I don't have to do that math in the morning again. 

1 scant cup of flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup of heavy cream

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

I recommend decanting the cream from the box first - it's hard to get it all out of the tetrapak. It's almost lumpy, but that seems to be a feature. Though it adds to the removal from box difficulty.

Stir together the dry ingredients, then stir in the cream until the dough comes together. If you need more liquid to get everything to hold, more cream is great if you have it, but in my case, I used a little water - added to the cream holding measuring cup in hopes of getting any bits of cream that clung to it involved. Knead for 20-30 seconds, getting the dough fairly uniform.

I rolled out and cookie cuttered this time, but I think rough balls would probably work great too. I made four - three actually rolled and cut, and then shoved all the last scraps into the form of the cookie cutter.

Bake for 15 minutes.

They are a different wonderful from the buttery flaky biscuits I also like (but still pretty flaky!) and it's amazing how much faster and less messy they are to make. And the cream doesn't go to waste!

Strawberries and Yellow Cake

We could call it strawberry shortcake, but then I feel I'm misleading you about what kind of cake it is. And everyone I talk to has a different idea about what the cake for strawberry shortcake should be. So this is just an easy yellow cake that I think goes well with the strawberry goo.

Strawberry Goo
(a much simplified version of the one found on epicurious)
2 lbs strawberries, cored

1 Tblsp sugar
2 Tblsp sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 c water


One pound of strawberries is going to get smashed and cooked, the other is going to swim in bite sized hunks in the sauce created from the first. I usually put one pound directly into the saucepan, one directly into a mixing bowl with a lid, cutting it up to however small seems forkable. (This can be done days ahead of time, so it's likely to live in your fridge for awhile.)

Toss the bite-size strawberry bits with 1 Tblsp of sugar in their mixing bowl and let them sit.

In the saucepan, use a potato masher to destroy the other pound of strawberries. Mash them up completely. Add the water, lemon juice, and remaining 2 Tblsp of sugar. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and let simmer for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let this cool, add to the mixing bowl of strawberry bits, store in the fridge until needed.


Yogurt Cake
(almost precisely from theKitchn)
1 1/2 c (12 oz) yogurt
2/3 c olive oil
1 1/4 c sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon extract
----
2 1/2 c flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a bundt pan.

Mix together all the stuff above ----, then stir in the dry ingredients until there are no lumps.

Pour into the bundt pan and bake for about 40 minutes. 

Black Pepper Chocolate Coffee Cake

Is largely this recipe and most of the modifications are via MJ

Ingredients
Batter
1 cup butter
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt (none if using salted butter)
1/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
1 teaspoon espresso powder
Filling
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sour cream and vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients. Spread 1/2 of batter in the prepared pan.

Mix together filling ingredients. Sprinkle cake batter with 1/2 the filling. Spread second half of batter over the filling, and top with remaining filling. This is harder than it sounds since the batter is just as thick as you'd expect once you realize that no actual liquids are involved.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

My pepper is super finely ground, which makes these measurements too much. It's still yummy though. I think I will successfully manage to feed most of it to coworkers.

Overdue Recipe: Rugelach

There's a little indie coffee shop in downtown Denver that has gorgeous looking pastries. I almost never buy one, but one day I bought a rugelach. Theirs was giant, dry, and sad - but with just enough pastry/filling flavor to hint that rugelach should be something much yummier.

And once I started looking for recipes, I realized this was something that my dad's mom would make as a Christmas cookie, and I was even more excited to make my own recipe. Her recipe, and many traditional ones, feature a sweet walnut filling, but I'm not that into walnuts and it sounded like more work, so I just use jam. Raspberry jam and orange marmalade are my standard choices.

Here's what I put together by looking at several recipes and keeping the less fiddly bits.

1 c butter
8 oz cream cheese
1/3 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 c flour
(I added a splash of water to mine this year because the texture looked off. It seemed to work.)

cream together everything but the flour, then added the flour and mix thoroughly. Add a tiny bit of cold water if it's not coming together.
Divide it into four parts, shape them as discs, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours.

Once they're chilled, roll it out to about 1/4 inch thick, cut wedges (pizza cutter!) add a dollop of jam to the wide end and roll them up. The jam ALWAYS leaks out, so I've been putting down foil and greasing that. I need to try parchment paper sometime.

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Let sit on the pan for a few minutes and then remove while they're still warm and before the jam leakage glues them to the foil forever.

You can do it one disc at a time, saving the rest in the fridge for... awhile. I think I had one dry out and get funky on me once, but it was there for probably a month.

Actions tell the truth

and I keep making this recipe. I have a LOT of chocolate cake recipes. Many. And the last 3 times I've made chocolate cake, I've made this. It's in the perfect sweet intersection of easy to make and tastes really good.

This is almost precisely King Arthur Flour's Favorite Fudge Birthday Cake. But I am here to tell you that it is perfectly happy to be made in many less fussy shapes than a 4 layer cake.

Halved to make about 12 cupcakes

1 c sugar
1 c flour
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 1/8 oz (3/8c) cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp espresso powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/4c + 2 Tblsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
5 oz water

you can just dump it all in a mixer and beat until smooth.

at 350 degrees, it takes about 16 minutes to make cupcakes, about 25 to make a short bundt (though I think I'll use the full size recipe next time I'm making a bundt)

It's not quite decadent enough to hold its own without frosting, but it's wonderfully moist, keeps well (I may have eaten the first batch of 24 cupcakes by myself) and is quite presentably fancy with frosting.

prepare for cookie time

Gingerbread Cookies

1/2 c shortening
1/2 c sugar
1 egg
1/2 c (6 oz) molasses
1 Tblsp vinegar
2 1/2 c flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 Tblsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves

Preheat oven to 375
roll out to about 1/2" thick, apply cookie cutters, bake on a greased cookie sheet for 5-6 minutes

Decorate with royal icing (you probably need less than half that recipe. I've only used egg whites because I always have eggs.) and all the sprinkles you can get to stick to it.

Heather, I think that might be your recipe? Though I knocked it in half and I'm hoping it won't suffer from the extra half of an egg. :)

Experimental Baking - Miniature King Cakes

Tuesday was Mardi Gras. My sole observance of this occasion is to eat king cake. Here in the north, that means that first I have to make king cake. This is the recipe I've been using for a few years. Two years ago: made one giant king cake. Which promptly had to be cut up because there was nowhere to store it. Last year: made two smaller king cakes - they barely fit in cake domes, but worked ok. Continuing the trend, I though I'd make single serving ones this year.




Above are the 4 types of construction I attempted. 3. was surprisingly hard to do, 4. was surprisingly easy. 4. came out looking the best - if I'd known how easy it was, I would have made more of that type. 2. was the best cream cheese delivery mechanism, 1. was the worst. I didn't manage to use all the sweetened cream cheese in the baking, so N was consuming the muffin tin shaped ones by heating them, cutting them in half, and adding lots more cream cheese.

I used royal icing instead of the glaze from the recipe - I wanted something that would harden instead of melting 24 hours later. It was a good choice. I dyed the icing purple since I only had green sprinkles. Next time I'll go for a darker purple.

The only real problem was that I killed the yeast with the melted butter. I really need to gain the patience to let the butter COOL. I made yeast soup in a ramekin with a Tblsp of yeast and enough water to make it all liquid, folded it into a divot in the dough and got the mixer going again - but lost two hours before I realized the yeast weren't working. It ended up working ok, so it's good to know that dead yeast bread can be recovered. (This time I really didn't want to go buy another lemon or use 5 more eggs!)

Cheese Biscuit Mashup

Mashup of Allrecipe's Cheese Drop Biscuits and Nick Malgieri's Pecorino and Pepper Biscuits (found in The Modern Baker)

Yield ~ 12

2 3/4 c flour
1 Tblsp baking powder
1 tsp garlic salt
dash of garlic powder (optional)
1 stick cold butter, cut into 12 pieces
3/4 c milk
3/4 c (70g) shredded cheddar cheese

preheat oven to 400 degrees

Put flour, baking powder, garlic salt and garlic powder in food processor, pulse a few times to mix.

Add cold butter pieces, pulse several times to avoid large lumps.

Add milk and cheese, pulse a few times to combine but not form a ball. May need to add a bit of water to get it to come together.

Grease a baking sheet, drop roughly formed biscuits about 1" apart.

Bake 12-15 minutes, until tops start to brown.

Experimental Baking - Cupcake Technicalities

Valentine's Day weekend, I made King Arthur Flour's Bake Sale Fudge Cupcakes. I wanted a recipe that was big enough that I could bring a bunch to work without begrudging them. (Not the greatest plan - my super healthy eating coworkers were almost useless at eating these.)
The recipe is easy, yummy, and very chocolately though. (It smells even better than it tastes though, which is a bit odd. And the chocolate chips inside were a little extra nice if you heat them up, but didn't add as much to the flavor as I felt like they should. )

But today we're here to talk about two things the recipe mentioned that were new to me:

1. "For more even doming, use cupcake papers." starts one of the tips in the sidebar.
2. "Remove the cupcakes from the oven, and tilt them in the cups so their bottoms don't steam." is one of the directions.

1. I've recently discovered the joy of spray oil with flour in it, and I had pretty much stopped using cupcake papers altogether. I always manage to dribble batter everywhere anyway, so they weren't saving me from washing the muffin tins, and it's nice to have the completely edible self-contained cake - no crumb-producing paper removing step.

2. I'd never heard this before! What separates a steamed bottom from an unsteamed bottom?

So the image shows my experiment: in my 12 spot tin, I sprayed half and did papers for half. In my two 6 spots, I tilted the cupcakes for half and left half to cool nestled in the tin.

The results:

1. The tops of the papered ones were prettier. They were smoother and maybe a bit more domed. For a recipe like this, where you don't have to frost them, it would look nicer to use the papers. The naked ones have kind of a crust edge where the sides rise faster or something. For my purposes though, it's so much easier to just eat the naked ones and you don't have that sad moment where you're LOSING CAKE as you peel off the paper. Papered ones went to work and we ate all the naked ones. Team Naked Cupcake.
2. I couldn't tell any difference between the ones that I tilted and the ones that I didn't. *shrugs* I don't have the most discerning palate, and these are pretty sturdy cupcakes, so I can't say there's absolutely nothing to it.

Perfect Pantry Coffee Cake

Goal: coffee cake with a decadent amount of streusel, made only of things I always have on hand.



Recipe:

Streusel (from Bon Appétit's Streusel Coffee Cake )
1/4 c (1/2 stick) butter, softened
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c rolled oats
2 tsp cinnamon

Cake (from Challenge Dairy's Streusel Topped Apple Bread )
1/2 c (1 stick) butter, softened
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c buttermilk
2 c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
(if using unsalted butter, 1/2 tsp salt)

Glaze (inspired by Alton Brown's Doughnut Glaze )
1/2 c powdered sugar
1 Tbsp dry milk
1/4 tsp vanilla
just enough water to make pourable

Stir together the streusel ingredients and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x9 pan with aluminum foil and spray with baking spray.

Cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time. Stir in the buttermilk and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and stir until just smooth.

Spread batter into prepared pan, top with streusel. Bake for 40 minutes. (Or until the center stops jiggling.)

While the cake is cooling, whisk together the glaze, adding water gradually until you have something that is just barely a liquid. Once the cake is nearly cool, pour liberally over the entire cake, it should soak in.

My Current Sourdough Recipe

This is based strongly on the Extra-Tangy Sourdough Bread from King Arthur Flour, but I wanted to include some whole wheat and I needed to enlarge the recipe to make loaves big enough for sandwiches.

morning: Take starter out of fridge
noonish: Use 8.5 oz of the starter to make pizza crust, feed starter
afternoon: start this bread

In a large bowl with a lid, mix:
8.5 oz starter
2 c whole wheat flour
2 c all purpose flour
2 c water

Put lid on. Let sit out for about 4 hours.
Stick in fridge overnight.

morning: take it out of the fridge, let sit about 2 hours so it's not so incredibly cold.
Add
2 3/4 tsp salt
1 Tblsp sugar
all purpose flour as needed - (I'm trying to get a measurement on this instead of just throwing in handfuls til I can knead it. I added 1 1/2 c last week, and that was too much. Which seems really weird looking at the original recipe..)

Knead about 6 minutes.

Let rise about 5 hours.

Shape into 2 loaves.

Let rise 2-3 more hours.

Slash tops deeply.

Bake at 425 degrees (I actually preheat for this one because it relies so much on oven spring) for 30 minutes.

How I make pie crust

(This is how it should look when you're done mixing - this is 2 crusts worth.)
Proportions from "The Basic Pie Crust" in Bernard Clayton, Jr.'s The Complete Book of Pastry, Sweet and Savory

6 Tblsp of fat, frozen. Lard is perfect. Butter is too soft, but half
butter, half crisco works pretty well. I freeze discs wrapped in wax
paper because it's easy to break the discs up.

Put 1 c flour in the food processor. Add a spoonful of sugar if you
want. Break up the fat onto it. Pulse until no fat particles bigger
than a pea are left. Add a little bit of ice water (Tblsp at a time if
you want to measure) give it a couple of pulses, check to see if it's
starting to clump together. Repeat the add water/pulse step until it
does. You are trying to create flour covered fat lumps that have just
enough water to gather together.

Dump the dough out onto some cling wrap, shove it into a lump. Wrap it
up and stick it in the fridge for at least 4 hours, not much more than
a day.

When you roll it out, be crazy generous with the flour. Cover the
surface, cover the rolling pin, cover both sides of your dough lump.
Once I have it rolled out, I usually fold it into 4ths to transfer to
the pie pan.

My Suggestion for your First Loaf of Bread

Slight adaptation of King Arthur Flour's Our Favorite Sandwich Bread
2 tsp yeast
1 c water
1/3 c dry milk
2 Tblsp sugar
1 c whole wheat flour
2 Tblsp butter, soft
1 1/4 tsp salt
All purpose flour for remainder

Notes:
The ingredients are listed in the order that I suggest adding them. It shouldn't matter much, but it's kind of nice to to dissolve the yeast in liquid first.
I use Rapid Rise yeast. Rose uses it for everything, so it must be fine. BUT it's fine to use any kind - you just may have longer rise times.
I use dry milk because a) I always have it on hand and b) the more finicky recipes I see say you must scald milk before you use it, but that dry milk is ok to just dump in.
It doesn't have to be white sugar. Brown sugar might add some warmth to the flavor. Honey is nice but kind of a pain to measure in small quantities. Molasses will give it a noticeable kick.
The whole wheat flour is optional - you can just use all purpose for the whole thing and get a nice white loaf.
I'd probably just do two rises at sea level - this was tested at high altitude.

Directions:
Stir main ingredients together.
Add 1 c all purpose flour and stir.
Add about 1/2 c flour at a time, stirring, until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and starts to come together as a single mass.

Cover your hands in flour (adding more as needed) and knead 6-8 minutes. (Punch it, fold it, throw it on the counter, search for youtube instructional videos - however you want to knead it.) As far as I can tell, you pretty much CAN'T overknead by hand, so go at least the 6 minutes and all the way up to 10 if that makes you happy.
For a single loaf recipe like this, I often mix in a large bowl, knead in the bowl so I don't get flour everywhere, and rise it in the same place.

Oil a bowl lightly, form the dough into a ball by tucking the ends under, place it in the bowl and cover. Kitchen towel or cling wrap will do if your bowl doesn't have a lid.

Allow to rise until doubled in size - about an hour, but varies GREATLY by warmth of room, altitude, etc. The first rise is usually the longest.

Punch it down, give it a few folds to distribute the bubbles. Reform, recover the bowl, and allow to rise to double its size again.

Oil (or better - that spray oil with flour incorporated) a loaf pan. Flatten your dough into a rectangle, and roll it into about the length of the pan. Tuck the ends over if you need to. Place in the pan with the seam down.
Spray oil top of dough, cover with cling wrap. Allow to rise til crest is about an inch over the top of the pan.

You may slash the top of the loaf before putting it in the oven. I did a single slash down the center.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Allow to cool completely before slicing.

Potato Bread

Heavily adapted from "Sister Jennie's Potato Bread" in Bernard Clayton, Jr.'s The Complete Book of Breads

For the sponge:

• 1 1/2 c water
• 1/2 c potato flakes
• 1 c whole wheat
• 2 1/2 tsp yeast
• 1/4 c brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 c all-purpose flour

Should make a thick batter, allow to rise until doubled in bulk: about an hour.

Stir in

• 1 softened stick of butter
• enough all-purpose flour to make kneadable

Knead 8 minutes, allow to rise until doubled in bulk: about an hour.

Shape into two loaves, allow to rise until about an inch above the edge of the loaf pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, then cover with foil. Bake for 25-30 more minutes.

It is very prone to burning, so don't forget the foil.

collection of updates

The leak was the overflow drain from the tub. So incredibly glad we found it before we patched the ceiling. We (really, my lovely husband) replaced the gasket and applied some caulk and soon we'll test it. THEN we'll buy a green board and fix the ceiling.

I DO really love judo tournaments. It's the exhilarating combination of "I never would have guessed I can do this" with "I am getting better and better at this." Sadly, N is bored to tears by them. (I can't blame him - we were stuck in a high school gym for 4.5 hours for me to get 3 fights. None of them lasted the whole time, so that's less than 9 minutes on the mat? less than 15? (Not sure how long our rounds were.)) I like having him there, but not enough to ruin his whole day again.

I have now given a talk at a real conference, like with grownups, not just students. It was terrifying, but I think it went well, and if it didn't I'll never know because the attendees at the Army Conference on Applied Statistics are the nicest bunch of people I could hope to meet in such a short time frame. Lots of interesting talks, lots of interesting conversations. (Example - have now chatted with someone who actually worked at Rand. EEEEE.)

My potato bread recipe has emerged out the side of my tinkering and tastes great. I'll have to type it up soon. (It's chicken scratch on the back of my flu shot info sheet right now. )

sourdough sleep

The starter went into the fridge last Sunday, right after a feeding, and I pulled it back out Friday evening. I let it come to room temperature, then planned to feed it as normal. But the top layer was kind of a funky color (grey-blue tinge) and the smell was a little off, so I scraped off the top layer, moved half to a clean jar and fed it. This morning it looked/smelled fine, and I started a batch of sourdough. I'm sure I'll report back on true rise time.

UPDATE: on a warm summer day - takes 7 hours to rise