Things I've Made With My Sourdough Starter

I decided that my next bread after ciabatta would be sourdough. As I was undergoing the process of working on my sourdough starter, I realized how much waste there was every time you feed the starter. You're supposed to get rid of about half of the starter every time! OR, you can incorporate the discard into recipes! I found a bunch of recipes that incorporated the sourdough discard, and decided that I was going to use all of my discard productively! And so, here are the things I made with my sourdough starter:

Sourdough Pancakes

First, I made whole wheat sourdough pancakes. I halved the recipe because I didn't want too many, and only really had 1/2 of a starter to contribute. I started out by making the overnight sponge:

1 cup flour

1/2 cup starter

1 cup buttermilk

1 tbsp sugar

I mixed the ingredients together, and it looked like the beginnings of a pretty typical pancake batter. I let the sponge sit overnight in the fridge.

The next morning, the batter looked pretty much the same as when I put it in. I added in the rest of the ingredients:

1 egg

1/8 cup oil

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

The batter came together nicely, and I heated up a pan and melted some butter on it. Using my 1/4 cup measuring cup, I spooned out portions of the batter onto the pan.

 

These were super easy pancakes--they held together very well, puffed up really nicely once they hit the pan (must've been all of the yeast growing in the starter), and flipped beautifully. Even though I'd halved the recipe, I still got a huge stack of pancakes!

Sourdough Bagels

These were really yummy, and had just a slight sweet and sour taste from the sourdough starter. At first, I was a little put off by the taste, but then I grew to love it. My mom said that they were the best pancakes she'd ever had! That seems like a win to me.

Next, I made whole wheat sourdough bagels. I was running out of all purpose flour, and the little that I did have I wanted to save for my actual sourdough, so it was all whole wheat for me when it came to these recipes. But whole wheat bagels are good, so I wasn't complaining.

I started out by making the dough:

1 cup starter 

1 1/4 cup water

2 tbsp syrup (barley malt or maple)

5 cups flour

2 tsp salt

First, I mixed the starter in with the water and syrup, to get a nice consistency of the wet ingredients. Then, I added in the dry ingredients. I mixed it all together until it was necessary to knead it in by hand on a floured surface. After about 4 cups of flour, my dough was super stiff, which the recipe says can happen, especially considering that I was using whole wheat flour, so I stopped adding flour. I covered my bowl with a towel and let it sit for 20 minutes.

 

After 20 minutes, I uncovered the dough. I then divided the dough into sections. I rounded each of the pieces of dough into balls. The recipe said that you could make 8 or 10 bagels, so of course I ended up making 9 somehow, but I didn't put it in the picture because it truly ruined the aesthetic. 

 

I then covered the pieces with a towel, letting them sit right on the countertop, and let them rest for 15 minutes. After the time was up, I uncovered them and began shaping them into their classic bagel shape.

 

After shaping my bagels, and realizing that they looked alarmingly like giant cheerios, I placed them on two baking sheets prepped with parchment paper and sprinkled with flour.  I then covered them with the towel and let them proof for 4 hours.

After 4 hours, I tested to see if they were ready to go in the fridge. I popped one of the bagels in a bowl of water, and it floated! If it sank, it wouldn't have been ready, but the bagel floating was all of the validation that I needed. I put the baking trays into the fridge and left the bagels there overnight.

Once I woke up, I took the bagels out to finish them up. I preheated the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, and put a large pot of water on the stove to boil, adding:

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp baking soda

In the meantime, I put my toppings on flat plates so I could dunk the bagels on them after they boiled. I used sesame seeds, poppy seeds, and flaky sea salt.

Once the water was boiling, I popped my bagels in. I did one at a time because I was too stressed to do multiple at a time--I have no idea how someone could do that. I let the bagel boil for 15-20 seconds on each side, then took it out with a slotted spoon so that all of the extra water would come off. I dunked my bagels into their toppings, and popped them right back on their baking sheet. 

The oven was ready now, so I put the bagels in to bake for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, I took them out to cool. They looked incredible. Once cooled, I ate one with only some butter and it was genuinely delicious. These sourdough recipes are really going well. I'm loving them!

 

Sourdough English Muffins

Later that day, I decided to make sourdough English muffins. At this point, I had way too much sourdough starter to know what to do with it, so I was getting to a point of either throw it away or make two recipes a day. I wasn't sure if my energy or ingredients could sustain two recipes a day, but for the time being I could do it.

I started out by mixing together some of the ingredients:

1 cup starter

3/4 cup warm water

1 cup whole milk

2 cups flour

I made a buttermilk by mixing 1 cup of almond milk with 1 tbsp lemon juice to replace the whole milk, because I didn't have it on hand. However, miraculously, my mom had gotten me more all purpose flour that morning so I got to bake with it again without worrying about my sourdough! I mixed the ingredients together and let them sit in a covered bowl for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, I uncovered the bowl and added the rest of the ingredients:

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup oil

2 tsp salt

3 cups flour

After I got to the third cup of flour, I dumped the dough out onto my clean surface to knead the flour in by hand. Unlike the bagel recipe, I ended up using one cup more of flour than the recipe called for. My dough just seemed a little too sticky without the additional flour. After kneading it into a smooth dough, I placed it into an oiled bowl, covered it, and let it rest for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, I gently deflated the dough, turned it over in its bowl, covered it again and let it rest for another 30 minutes. Then, I repeated the process: gently deflating the dough, turning it over in its bowl, and covering it again. I let it rest for 1 hour this time, came back, repeated the process, and let it rest for 1 more hour.

Finally, it was time to roll out the dough. I sprinkled some cornmeal on my surface, and dumped out the dough. I rolled it out until it was 1/2 inch thick. 

 

Then I took a small metal cup and cut out rounds of the dough. I placed these on a baking sheet prepped with parchment paper.

 

I covered these up, and let them rise for 1 hour. Well, the recipe said one hour, but it ended up being 2 hours for me because I got delayed, but the muffins still looked good when I came back.

I heated up a pan and put some butter on it. Then, I dropped some of the English muffins on the pan to cook (four at a time) and, once the first side was nice and toasty, flipped them over to cook them on the other side.

 

After both sides were cooked, I put them on a plate to cool.

 

Just like the other sourdough recipes, these were very good. I enjoyed one with some almond butter and jam.

Sourdough Croissants

For my last sourdough recipe before the actual bread, I wanted to go big or go home. In the end, I found myself somewhere in between those two...but more on that later. I decided to make sourdough croissants. 

I started out by mixing together some of the ingredients:

1 cup of starter

1 1/4 cup warm whole milk

 1/2 tsp yeast

2 cups flour

Again, I subbed the whole milk with a buttermilk by mixing 1 cup of almond milk with 1 tbsp lemon juice to replace the whole milk, because I didn't have it on hand. I mixed the ingredients together, covered the bowl, and let it sit for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, it was time to add some more ingredients:

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup flour

I finished the dough by kneading it by hand. I put it into a lightly oiled bowl, covered it, and let it rest for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, I gently deflated the dough, turned it over in its bowl, covered it and let it rest for another 30 minutes. Similarly to the English muffins, I had to keep repeating this process. I came back to deflate it, turn it over and let it rest for another hour. Again, I came back to deflate it, turn it over and let it rest for another hour.

During the last hour long rest, I prepared the butter:

16 oz butter

I rolled out 16 ounces of butter into an 8 inch square on a piece of parchment paper, covering it with another piece of parchment paper. I used vegan butter. This may have been my first mistake. But, the square looked great!

 

I put the butter into the fridge, and took it out once the dough was done with its hour long rest. I rolled the dough out to a 10 inch square. Then, on each edge, I rolled out a 3 inch flap, which were thinner than the center of the dough.

I then put my butter square on the center of the dough.

I folded the flaps over the butter, and sealed the dough closed.

Next, I had to roll this out to an 8 inch by 24 inch rectangle. This is where things got messy. The butter was quickly melting, and it just barely started to ooze a little bit out of the dough. I was working as gently as I could, but it still didn't seem to help. I ended up rolling the dough out to an 8 inch by approximately 18 inch rectangle to avoid further oozing.

 

I then brushed the dough with cold water, and folded it over itself in thirds, like a letter. 

I was then supposed to roll the dough out to an 8 inch by 24 inch rectangle again. I probably should have refrigerated the dough at this point, but I didn't. I rolled it gently back out to an 8 inch by probably 16 inch rectangle, then folded it in thirds again.

I set the dough in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, it was time to roll the dough out to that rectangle again. I probably got it out to an 8 by 16 inch rectangle again, then folded it in thirds once more. This time, I chilled the dough in the fridge for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, I took the dough out. I was supposed to roll the dough out to a 16 by 24 inch rectangle this time, and I truly did my best. I went gently and slowly, and tried to sprinkle flour on top of the places where the butter was oozing (although I'm not sure if this was a good or bad idea) but I made it to about 14 by 20 inches before I couldn't roll it out anymore.

 

Then, I folded it over itself so that the rectangle was 7 by 20 inches. 

 

I cut the dough into triangles. At this point, I was supposed to unfold it so it was back at 14 by 20 inches, but cut into diamonds, so I could turn the diamonds into triangles and have a bunch of future croissants. But because croissants are so layered by nature, I couldn't figure out where the half point was with most of the dough, and I ended up not being able to unfold it.

I then rolled all of the triangles (both thick and thin) into the typical croissant shape by starting at the flat end and rolling the dough over itself, down towards the pointy end. I ended up with some small croissants, some giant croissants, and some fun looking blobs. It was really at this point when I realized that my dreams of making the perfect croissants were out of the window. Now, I was just hoping for good tasting croissants.

I put the croissants on baking sheets prepped with parchment paper and covered them up with plastic wrap. I popped them in the fridge and left them there overnight.

In the morning, I took the croissants out of the fridge and let them rest at room temperature for 3 hours. I preheated my oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and, after the 3 hours were up, I put them in the oven.

After 20 minutes, my blobs had cooked into crispy almost-croissants. While these were far from perfect, they did taste good. They tasted distinctly of sourdough, while most of these other recipes only tasted faintly of sourdough, and had the classic croissant flakiness. The croissants were kind of dense, and didn't have many distinct layers or airiness, but they were still good. Overall, a decent thing to eat but a stressful thing to bake--something I will likely not attempt again!