What's For Dinner?

Sourdough Bread

Ingredients:
Starter:

approx 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups water

Bread:

1 cup warm water
1 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbs oil
4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sourdough starter
2 tsp active dry yeast

Directions:
For making starter:
Mix 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour with 1 1/2 cups water. It should be the consistency of pancake batter. Leave it out, uncovered in a warm place, out of direct sunlight. The starter will pick up wild yeast from the air and feed them. Within a few days, it should bubble and smell sour. If it crusts over before that, just stir it up. If it smell foul, throw it out and try again.

Once it bubbles, put it in the fridge in a loosely covered jar or crock-no metal. Left alone, it will stay good for at least 2 months. When you are ready to use it, just pour off any black liquid that has formed on top.

For bread:
Put all ingredients into breadmaker in the order listed above.

I set my machine to dough. When machine is done, I formed 2 loaves and put them on a cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal. I let it rise in a warm oven for 20 minutes, then baked at 350 for another 20. Let it cool before slicing, if you can wait that long!!

Servings: makes 2 small loaves
Time to Prepare: at least 10 days waiting for starter, then 5 minutes to load up machine...ect...

Submitted By: Kathleen
Original Source: breadnet.net

Comments:
This sounds totally scary and I admit, I had the starter recipe for over a year before I felt brave enough to try it. Worked amazingly well and the taste is to die for!! It's really not as tricky as it sounds. I promise!!