In the past week we’ve had another wonderful visit from an old friend, doctor visits, and car troubles. We’ve also had some delicious food, and a couple of opportunities to bake, both sweets and savory. Before I get to the newer stuff, however, in my last post I promised that I’d share my sourdough rolls. To be honest though, I don’t even know if that’s what they are, exactly. Yes, I’m using sourdough starter, but I’m throwing it into a recipe that normally uses a very young (12-16 hours old) starter, and produces a more traditional Italian loaf. The use of an older starter gives these a much more pronounced tang than they would normally have. Plus, I’m shaping them as rolls instead of a loaf (although I’ve done that, too). So what is it? Sourdough? Italian? Soutalian? Italerdough? Rollitalisour? I don’t know exactly what to call them, but they’re darn good. I think I’ve decided to keep this highly mutated recipe for rolls, and continue working on a truer sourdough for loaves.
Truthfully, I can’t promise that this recipe will work for anyone else. I think (in my very limited knowledge on the topic) that so much depends on your particular starter. I had to do a lot of tweaking with volume and timing to figure out what worked consistently with my starter. For me, the first key was feeding the starter about 10 hours before I planned on beginning. In theory, this means that I’d feed it just before bedtime, and start actively working with it after breakfast. What that really means is that frequently I would end up with no bread when I had hoped for bread, because I don’t have the kind of attention span that lets me plan that far in advance on a regular basis. On the occasions that I did remember, though, after breakfast I’d pull out 12 ounces of starter from the bucket. This seemed to be just the right amount to use in order to get the rise and texture that I was looking for. Your starter may vary. I’d be surprised if it didn’t. Read the rest of this entry ?
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