FeauxCajun.Com

May the Fourth Be With You: Bantha Burgers on Sourdough Blue Milk Buns

2024-05-23T12:43:00.003-05:00

It's not every year that May the Fourth falls on a weekend. So when it does, you should probably round up your fellow Star Wars nerds and have a Galactic BBQ, right? YES. Even if it falls on the busiest Saturday of the entire year...seriously--why is the first Saturday in May so chaotic? It's National Homebrew Day, the Kentucky Derby, ArtsFest, Kids Fishing Day...And this year, STAR WARS DAY.

There is no shortage of creative Star Wars food ideas on the interwebs, but of course, I had sourdough to use and needed to make bread. I saw this recipe for "blue milk hamburger buns" and thought--yup, that's the one. But I hope it doesn't take too much food dye.

Wherein my fellow Star Wars nerd-friend who was hosting the party said, "oh, don't worry. I have an industrial-size food grade bottle of blue food dye. Take as much as you need." And he sent me on my way with about 2 Tablespoons of BLUE in one of those little 2-ounce plastic containers, like what you use for jello shots. (You may be asking: "why does someone own a giant @$$ bottle of food dye?" And the answer is: I don't know. I've stopped asking questions at this point.)

Once home and baking, I started adding blue...got about halfway through what he'd given me, and said, "OK...that's about the color of the original recipe...but what do I do with the rest of this?" ....Soooo....I just threw the rest of it in there as well. And we have VERY blue buns.

Note: since the "official" Star Wars blue milk buns were yeast only, not sourdough, I used that for inspiration only, and actually made these buns using The Pantry Mama's recipe (I SHOULD have reduced the liquid slightly to account for all the food dye, so I ended up having to add extra flour. Learn from my mistakes.)

I really love the way the color ended up coming up. Yes, it's darker that intended, but with the blistering on the surface, it has a very deep space, galactic hue to it.

The party went very well. Our host had some "screen accurate cups" similar to those used in The Mandalorian filled with blue milk (for the kids) and Fuzzy Tauntaun cocktails (for the adults)...we also used them to serve the homebrew beer we'd brought.

Other friends brought nerf kabobs, lightsaber pretzels, and blue milk milkshakes for dessert.

We watched A New Hope on an outdoor screen after it got dark, while IG-88 and his pit droid stand guard:

I made 12 total buns; the recipe called to divvy it into 8 balls, but I wanted to make sure we had enough, so they were a little on the small side but worked well with the size of patties we made. But the kids were a little weirded out by just HOW BLUE they were and decided to eat hot dogs and brats instead. So we had a few left over to bring home. I decided to make steak sliders the next night with sauteed onions, horseradish mustard, and melted pepperjack. *chefs kiss*

Roasted Garlic & Rosemary Sourdough Focaccia

2024-05-21T16:22:00.003-05:00

Who else remembers the 80's and 90's when pasta was "health food"? Carbs were our friend, they gave you energy, and places like Olive Garden & Carrabba's were "fancy international dining". (At least, they were if you lived in rural Missouri, where the fanciest restaurant in town was a Dairy Queen, and you had to drive 40 minutes in any direction to find a sit-down dining chain).

I will never not love and defend pasta, which is fine in moderation, like everything else. In our house, we have some form of pasta at least once a week. And this particular week, we wanted to channel our "fancy Italian" youth and make some sourdough focaccia and dipping oil to go with it. We used this recipe from The Perfect Loaf as our base.

For toppings, I saw several recipes that recommended sticking unpeeled garlic cloves around the top, noting that leaving them in the peel would allow them to roast without burning. This worked VERY well--once the bread has cooled a bit, you can remove the cloves, which pop out of the peel easily, and then stick the now-unpeeled cloves back into the bread. We also had red onion and fresh rosemary, and I included some coarse kosher salt over the top as well.

We served this the first night with a delicious, creamy entrée of Italian Sausage Orzo from Salt & Lavender (note: we used chopped kale rather than spinach because it's what we had on-hand).

The leftover bread was noshed on throughout the rest of the week, sometimes with just a little olive oil, salt & pepper, and sometimes with a fancier dip comprised of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, grated parmesan, minced garlic, red pepper flakes, and Italian herb blend, similar to this recipe.

Cinnamon Peach Swirl Sourdough

2024-05-20T09:34:00.003-05:00

This recipe was born because we wanted strawberry jam. ...I'll explain: We only have so much fridge door real estate, which is where jams and other condiments live, of course. And we also have this sort of unwritten rule about not having more than two types of jam/jelly open in the fridge at once (probably because we need to make sure we have plenty of room for the 5-6 types of pickled things that also live in the door). There was a new, unopened jar of strawberry jam in the pan but first we needed to use up a partial jar of peach jam that had already been in the fridge for a while.

I couldn't find a recipe for exactly what I wanted to do, so I modified a cinnamon raisin swirl bread I'd had some success with in the past. The peach jam we had (used about half a jar, or 1 cup) was homemade, from my Aunt Betty, and was delicious, but I wanted some other flavor notes in there. So I mixed in some cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg (to taste). I tried to spread the filling as thin as I could, but with chunks of peach in there, it wasn't perfect.

This got rolled up from right to left, taking plenty of time to make sure I was sealing the edges well, so that there wouldn't be much leakage. Then it went into a well-greased metal loaf pan.

One busted seam...not too bad! Used an egg wash to get a nice glossy, golden top.

This was fabulous toasted with a bit of butter, but some of the slices where the filling was thicker were a tad undercooked, and wouldn't hold up well enough to go in a vertical toaster (would be fine in a toaster oven). My favorite thing we made with it? Griddled BLTs. The peach went so well with the smoky bacon and some pepperjack cheese.

Sourdough Discard Pretzel Bites & Beer Cheese Dip

2024-05-20T09:12:00.000-05:00

Long time readers may know that The Hubs and I played trivia weekly at a bar downtown for about 6 years before Lil' Man was born. We seek out pub quiz and trivia nights at breweries when we travel. A few months ago, we started up a new team with some of our HomeBrew Zoo friends for a bi-monthly trivia night at a local brewery that doesn't have onsite food. One night, we saw another group bring in a cake and some snacks for a party, and it occurred to us...why don't we just bring food and eat here? And thus, Trivia Potluck was born.

Crockpot in a Brewery...not the weirdest thing you've ever seen.

Recently, The Hubs was craving cheese dip, so I decided to make some sourdough pretzel bites to go with it, using this discard recipe from Pantry Mama. I stayed true to recipe so if you're interested in making the pretzel bites, just click on that link. But if you're interested in our cheese dip recipe, it's below!

Note: I accidentally doubled the amount of salt in the pretzel bites recipe...flavor was fine, but I think it impeded fermentation a bit. I would also recommend using warm water to let the yeast bloom for a little while before adding everything else in.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb brick of lower sodium Velveeta-type melting cheese
1 lb spicy italian sausage, browned & drained
14 oz can of low sodium Rotel tomato-chiles blend (DO NOT DRAIN)
1 Tbsp taco seasoning
1/2 cup homebrew or other beer (we used a pilsner)

DIRECTIONS;

Brown sausage, drain, and set aside.
Cube up the melting cheese, place in a small crockpot, and add the Rotel & taco seasoning. Let melt/blend for 2 hours on Low, or 1 hour on High, stirring frequently.
Once it starts to melt & come together, add the sausage and beer, and stir.
Serve warm with chips, pretzel bites, whatever else you feel like dunking in delicious cheese...and of course, with lots of friends!

I only put Everything Bagel seasoning on part of them, since I wasn't sure if it would clash with the cheese dip.

Good times with great friends!

Sourdough Jalapeno Cheddar Loaf

2024-05-15T15:43:00.004-05:00

With the madness of the holidays finally over, I had some time to bake full fermented loaves again. The Hubs wanted something savory, so we settled on this recipe from SueBee Homemaker.

I didn't stray from her recipe much, so click the link if you're interested in trying this one. We used slightly less pickled sliced jalapenos than what the original recipe called for because it was all we had on-hand, so I chopped them up to make sure the jalapeno flavor was distributed throughout the loaf. We shredded up some extra sharp cheddar. The jalapeno was mild enough that even our "Everything's Too Spicy" 8 year old enjoyed eating it.

I tend to prefer using a loaf pan to more free-form, oblong loaves...mainly because I don't have an oblong pan (like this Challenger bread pan) to cook them in, so they would have to be just baked on our pizza stone, which doesn't allow for trapping in steam during the initial part of the bake, which is where you get a lot of really nice rise from. At least with the loaf pans, there's some structure to help them rise UP rather than just out in every direction. They're also a lot easier to slice using my new slicing guide.

We made this when it was still pretty chilly outside, so we served this alongside some hearty beef stew and chili.

I rubbed butter on the top of the loaf before baking, which added some flavor but not a lot of shine like egg wash would have.

Lemon-Blueberry Sourdough Donuts (Belated Valentine's)

2024-02-18T20:00:00.002-06:00

Putting Mardi Gras and Valentine's next to each other just about did me in this year. First, I volunteered to make a sourdough King Cake and shrimp boil for the office Mardi Gras potluck. And I had every intention of waking up early on Valentine's Day to make fresh donuts for my two favorite men. BUT...then I got knocked out by a whopper of a cold. I spent half of Valentines snoozing and the other half sneezing.

By Saturday I was on the mend, so I finally made discard donuts for breakfast. Lil' Man wanted chocolate chips rather than blueberry, so I obliged with part of the batch. I also wanted to bring in some pink for Valentine's Day, so I made part of the batch with halved maraschino cherries, and a pink glaze. The below recipe is a variation off Farmhouse on Boone's base recipe. You'll need silicone donut molds to bake these in the oven.

INGREDIENTS: (makes twelve 3-inch donuts, or eight 4-inch donuts

1/2 cup sourdough discard
3/4 cup buttermilk (I keep buttermilk powder in the fridge for when I need it)
1/2 stick (4 Tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
2/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice (about half a lemon's worth)
zest of half a lemon
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

Fillings:

Frozen or fresh blueberries
maraschino cherries
chocolate chips

For the Glaze:

1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 tsp milk (depending on your preferred thickness)
red food coloring (to make pink glaze)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350F, and grease your donut molds.
Whisk together the starter & buttermilk until smooth, then add the butter, vanilla, egg, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest, and stir until combined.
Add the salt, flour, and baking powder and mix until just combined.
Transfer the batter into a gallon-size zip lock or piping bag, and cut a hole in the corner/tip about 1/2 inch wide.
Use the bag to pipe the batter into the donut molds, dividing equally between the molds (I used one 4-inch pan and one 3-inch pan).
Press the fillings into the donut batter (I put about 6-8 blueberries in each of the 4-inch molds, about 6 cherry halves in the 3-inch donuts). Press the fillings down into the batter to partially or fully submerge them.
Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until tops are brown.
Allow to cool in the pans for about 15 minutes, then transfer onto a cooling rack.
While the donuts cool, make your glaze. I used the plain glaze on my blueberry donuts, and then added a couple drops of food coloring to make pink for the cherry & chocolate chip versions.
You can optionally add some sprinkles--we had some heart shaped ones on-hand.

The lemon flavor in the batter & glaze worked well with all three variations. It enhances the blueberry well, but is subtle enough to almost be unnoticed with the chocolate chip. I had hoped it would create a sort of "cherry lemonade" flavor, but the cherries are too sweet and overpowered the other flavors. So if you wanted to do just a batch of the cherry donuts, I would recommend doubling the lemon juice and zest, and cut the sugar back to 1/2 cup.

Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Bread

2024-02-18T16:03:00.003-06:00

Redemption!!!

After my fail with the cranberry cinnamon bread (that wouldn't rise and is more aptly described as "bagel bread", I decided to try again, but using the swirl to get the cinnamon in there. This recipe from Clever Carrot sounded pretty fab, and I was very happy with the results.

My kitchen was a bit cold and I was short on time, so I decided to add 8g of active dry yeast to this version to make sure it rose in time. I also mixed for 10 minutes in the Kitchenaid, rather than doing stretch & folds.

I don't think I've done an egg wash on one of my loaves before, mostly because it feels like a waste of the rest of the egg, but I gotta say, the shine it adds is really gorgeous.

It also gave me a chance to use the bread slicer that The Hubs gave me for Christmas. It's a little flimsy but gets the job done. I hadn't previously been pre-slicing my loaves before storing, but cutting bread while it's still fresh & room temp is way easier (and probably safer) than hacking into it later when it's been in the fridge, and it's fantastic when toasted with butter.

Things I've Made Lately

2024-02-18T15:42:00.006-06:00

Lest you think I've only been making things with sourdough, I wanted to share a few really good things I've made recently, and share links to the original posts!

1. Chili Crisp Salmon - I was listening to an episode of The Sporkful Podcast and heard a description of chili crisp, and decided it was worth a try. So we bought some, and I've been putting it on just about everything, from eggs, to ramen, leftover spaghetti marinara, and this glazed salmon from LittleSpiceJar.

2. Crispy Shawarma Wings from Peal with Zeal - I was cleaning out the spice rack and remembered I had gotten some shawarma seasoning from our local market (and promptly forgot about it). The Hubs was craving wings, so we tried this recipe. This was the first time I'd done a dry rub with baking powder and it made the skin extra crispy.

2. Beef Tallow Roasted Potatoes - The Hubs was smoking a brisket and we had several pounds of fat trimmings, so I decided to attempt to melt it down. I'm pretty sure I didn't do it quite right, but it still made these potatoes taste AMAZING.

4. Alton Brown's Coconut Balls - I have often joked that Alton Brown's recipes all have too many steps, which is a deterrent from trying them. But then this one...had only 2 steps! Must be super easy! Not true. It seems simple at the surface, but the coconut filling is SUPER sticky and makes these really messy to make, and then they kept trying to fall apart as I was coating them in chocolate. It was an ordeal, but the final result was very tasty, and made for good gifts to my coworkers.

5. Oven Roasted Marinara - Our neighbors shared this recipe from The Wooden Skillet with us last fall, so I had to bust it out again this fall when we found ourselves with a surplus of end-of-season tomatoes and basil. So easy, SO GOOD. We served it with Italian sausage & cascatelli.

Sourdough Discard Chocolate Chip, Coconut, Carrot & Zucchini Bread

2024-02-17T20:01:00.001-06:00

After a couple busy weeks without much baking, I had a LOT of discard to use up. I also had this random bag of frozen "zoodles" in the freezer that we bought quite a while ago. I've used them in recipes a few different times...but they don't thaw well and become mush. So, I thought maybe a zucchini bread might be a better option to use them up. And in an effort to sneak some extra veggies into my kids diet, I decided to shred up some carrot as well (but include chocolate chips to guarantee that he ate it--he's been known to turn up his nose at several of my sourdough concoctions). And coconut...for me. Because I like it.

INGREDIENTS (Makes 1 Loaf):

3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
125g sourdough discard
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup coconut oil (melted)
175g shredded zucchini (or about 1/2 bag of thawed chopped zoodles) after removing excess moisture [Note: I made two loaves to use up all of the zoodles]
75g grated carrot (I used a pretty fine grate)
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350F
Mix together the sugar, eggs, discard, vanilla, and coconut oil until smooth.
Add in the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinamon, and mix until just combined. Then fold in the zucchini, carrot, chocolate chips, and coconut.
Grease a 9x5 loaf pan and pour in the batter.
Bake for ~60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.
Let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, and then transfer onto a cooling rack and allow to cool for 1 hour.

This was a really nice option to have for breakfast in the morning with a cup of coffee, or as an afternoon snack with some tea! If you wanted, you could definitely include some pecans or walnuts

Sourdough Discard Pie Crust and Vegetable Quiche

2024-02-17T12:35:00.001-06:00

If you've known me for a while, or read this blog for a while, you know we do a murder mystery party near Halloween each year in honor of our friend's birthday. This year's theme was A Knight of Murder, and my character was Poor Pearl, the peasant baker. So I decided to bake up a "vegetable tarte" for our feast, using sourdough discard in the crust.

I used Little Spoon Farm's pie crust recipe; unfortunately I think I overworked the dough because the crust ended up slumping when I did the pre-bake.

Pre-slump.

For the filling, I used:

1 Tbsp butter
1/2 white onion
4 oz mushrooms, sliced
1 Tbsp garlic
4-5 eggs
1/2 cup half & half
1/2 Tbsp of Adjika Georgian seasoning
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup cheese of your choice (I used shredded smoked gouda)

DIRECTIONS:

Par bake the crust for 15 minutes at 425F, then remove.
On the stovetop, sauté onions, garlic & mushrooms in the butter until soft, then place in the pie crust. Add cheese, then peas to the crust.
Mix the eggs, half & half, and Georgian seasoning in a medium bowl and whisk until beaten. Pour over the vegetables & cheese.
Bake at 350F for 40-50 minutes or until eggs are set.

Serve with many other amazing Medieval themed dishes whilst among friends dressed in period-appropriate garb.

Lord Taylor & Lady Gwendolyn, our fair hosts for the evening's festivities. (They literally have the BEST basement for hosting events like this.)

Many good times were had by all, and The Hubs & I were neither murdered nor the murderers. And everything was DELICIOUS. Huzzah!

Poor Pearl the Peasant & Sir Cameron the Red Knight

Sourdough King Cake for Mardi Gras!

2024-02-17T11:40:00.001-06:00

Every year at my office, we have a Mardi Gras potluck. One year I brought a boudin king cake; another year I made one from pre-made cinnamon roll dough. Another year I just made kingcupcakes. But I hadn't ever made one from scratch. But since I've managed to keep my sourdough starter alive for a year, I figured it was about time to try.

I found this recipe online and stayed pretty true to the recipe, but found the dough to be a bit too sticky. I made a practice version the week before Mardi Gras--but didn't get the seams sealed well so it leaked out quite a bit, and was a bit dense.

So for the actual Mardi Gras potluck, I decided to add about a teaspoon of active dry yeast and about 20 extra grams of bread flour. I also modified the filling: rather than mixing the butter in with the cinnamon & sugar, I spread the melted butter on the dough and then sprinkled the cinnamon sugar generously on top of that.

I used this video to learn how to make the braid (about 15 minutes into video), since I didn't want to just do a simple roll.

I've given up on trying to keep powdered sugar around the house. It always ends up going bad before I use the whole bag. So I discovered I can make about 1/2 a cup in my coffee grinder, which is all I needed to make enough icing for this cake. (You can vary the amounts of the liquids to get to your desired consistency. )

Icing:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp milk

I also made the purple, green and yellow sugar to go on top of the icing--pretty simple, just mixing a few drops of food coloring in a ziploc bag with 1/2 cup sugar per bag, then zip, and knead until color is mixed all the way through, then open the bag and spread out the sugar to let dry.

The cake turned out great, not too dense, good flavor, and no leaks!

This was probably one of our best potlucks so far! We had red beans & rice with jalapeno cornbread, dirty rice made with collard greens & chicken andouille, shrimp boil, apples with praline dip...all the good things!

Sourdough Discard Chocolate Donuts!

2023-11-06T07:42:00.002-06:00

I've been talking about wanting to make donuts with my sourdough for a while, so the Hubs gave me one of my Christmas gifts early: a 3-inch silicone donut mold! I was pretty excited to try it out. The original recipe I used was meant to make 24 donuts, so I cut it in half to make enough batter for 12... but then, when I started pouring, turns out it was just a little more than I needed to make six donuts. So either I was pouring heavy, or the original recipe was meant for a smaller diameter donut mold, or both. I tinkered with this enough to be able to list it out as an original recipe (also, I did the conversions to grams so, you're welcome).

INGREDIENTS (makes 6-ish three-inch donuts):

75g AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
30g cocoa powder
1 tsp instant coffee or espresso powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
70g brown sugar
60g sourdough discard
120g milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
36g coconut oil, melted
50g mini chocolate chips (optional)

Glaze:

1 Tbsp powdered sugar
splash of milk
splash of vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350F. Whisk together all the dry ingredients, then add in the brown sugar, sourdough discard, milk, oil, and vanilla. Mix until well combined with no lumps, then add in the chocolate chips (if you like).

Transfer the batter into the donut mold (I opted to put a little cooking spray in mine, even though it's silicone, as a bit of insurance) using a ziploc bag as a piping bag. Put the mold on a cookie sheet for easier handling in and out of the oven.

Bake for 16-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Set the mold on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then flip and remove the donuts from the mold. Once they've cooled for at least 30 minutes, you can make the glaze (the original poster melted chocolate chips to make a frosting, which would also be good) and add to the donuts. Then eat!

Pre-glazing.

These had a very light, fluffy texture, less dense than cake donuts you would get from the donut shop or store. We saved back a couple to see if they would get more firm/less dense the next day. The glazed had definitely hardened them up a bit but the interior was still very fluffy. I'm looking forward to trying out some other recipes with my donut mold!

Next day donut.

Fail: Sourdough Cinnamon Cranberry Bread

2023-11-06T07:06:00.003-06:00

Spoiler: This week's sourdough adventure did not turn out well.

A very tasty brick.

As you may already know, cinnamon has antibacterial properties. Sourdough needs yeasties and bacteria in order to rise. This is why you so often see cinnamon swirl breads, where the cinnamon is introduced after fermentation and most of the rising has already occurred. Because adding cinnamon at the beginning will retard that bulk fermentation process.

...but I'm lazy and don't like extra steps, and because my dough often tends to be wet, it doesn't lend well to rolling out and adding a "swirl" layer in, as first discovered when I was trying to make spent grain bread. So I've generally just been trying to focus on finding recipes where the add-ins can be mixed directly into the dough. I found this recipe from Lynn's Way of Life on Pinterest which incorporated everything in, so I tried that. The only modification to the recipe was that I used dried cranberries instead of raisins, because that's what we had in the pantry.

The recipe clearly notes that because the cinnamon is mixed in early, fermentation may take longer than a normal loaf. But a compounding issue here is that I was off on my timing with my starter. Saturday is typically my baking day, so Friday night I pull my starter out of the fridge, let it get active overnight, use that fairly active "discard" in a recipe, then feed my starter and put it back in the fridge. But I forgot to pull my starter out of the fridge on Friday. So instead, at some point on Saturday (which had a lot of other things going on), I pulled my starter from the fridge, fed it, and then left it out on the counter, optimistically (and erroneously) thinking I would make my dough that evening once it was bubbly. But by the time it was was ready, I was not. I was busy making gumbo and didn't feel like messing with it. So I left the starter out on the counter overnight and planned to make my dough the next morning.

Somewhere in there, I'm pretty sure the starter had already reached it's peak. It was still very bubbly when I made my dough the next morning, so I figured all was well. But I think between the starter already being headed back towards hunger, and the cinnamon mix-in on top of that...she just didn't rise. Like, AT ALL.

Folded and in the pan. I gave it some extra time to "rise" in the fridge overnight...which it did not.

Very dense crumb.

Even though it was super dense, the flavor was still really good, especially toasted and with butter. My husband called it "bagel bread". So I would be willing to attempt this recipe again with my usual process. I've never used the float test to confirm my starter is ready, but this might be a good time to try that, just to make sure the dough has a fighting chance at rising in spite of the cinnamon.

Sourdough Bagels

2023-11-05T11:04:00.001-06:00

Bagels are one of my favorite breakfast options--who doesn't want delicious carbs first thing in the morning! I had never tried making them before, sourdough or otherwise. I generally just pick them up on sale, buy a container of whipped cream cheese (salmon if buying plain or everything bagels). With my last bagel purchase, we went through the bagels faster than the salmon cream cheese, so I decided it was time to try my hand!

I used Farmhouse on Boone's recipe, (no modifications, so click that link for the recipe) which makes 8--perfect for a week's worth of breakfasts. I opted to make plain bagels, no mix-ins, but decided to top them differently: two plain, two with cinnamon sugar, 3 with everything bagel seasoning, and one with za'atar spice, which I love on naan or flatbread, so it stood to reason it would also be excellent on a bagel. (I was not wrong.)

These are super easy. I don't know if I'd go as far as to say "I'm never buying bagels again!" because I'm not an extremist and don't believe in absolutes, but I can say I WILL make these again at some point, the next time I'm craving bagels. I might try some add-ins, but maybe not--it's really easy to make one batch of plain and then season them differently.

I would recommend going ahead and slicing these while at room temp after they bake. We store our bread in the fridge and these are VERY difficult to slice while cold. But we could pop them into the microwave for about 10-15 seconds and then they sliced easily.

Sourdough Rye Bread & Homemade Reubens

2023-09-24T12:57:00.000-05:00

The reuben sandwich holds a special place in our hearts and stomachs. Our favorite pre-kid hangout had a killer Reuben on their menu, and it's something that if we're traveling and looking to split an entrée, Reuben is an easy "yes" from either of us.

After my flaxseed bread from a few weeks ago turned out so well, I spent some time perusing the other recipes from that bloggers page, "Pants Down Aprons On" (bonus points for clever risque name). I saw two other intriguing recipes: A rye bread...and a traditional kvass beverage made WITH some of the rye bread (which appealed to my husband the homebrewer). That's a two-fer, and I'm sold.

I did not deviate from the OG poster's recipe, so hop on over to that link if you want to check out the ingredient list. Note: this will make two sandwich loaves. We ended up freezing one for later.

Step 1 was to acquire all the extra crap I would need to make this, like whole coriander, caraway seeds, and molasses. For the former I hit up the bulk section at our favorite local whole foods store (Mama Jeans FTW!). However MJ's price on molasses was too high, so I bought that at Wally-World. Ideally, I would have loved to sub in some Steen's cane syrup but I don't have any on-hand. Since I stopped working on the project that used to take me back down to Louisiana once a quarter, the Cajun section of our pantry is sparse. Guess I need to schedule me a visit...

Step 2: Pre-ferment. This is not a step I've done on other recipes, and honestly, it totally threw me off guard. I pulled my starter out of the fridge the night before I planned to bake, to let it get up to room temp and become nice & active...then woke up, ready to bake, and discovered I'd skipped a step. Thankfully I was making this on a week while we were on stay-cation, so I ended up just postponing my bake by a day...but still, disappointing.

Step 2b: Rescue a dog. This is not actually a required step, but did end up being the thing we did that day rather than baking bread. There was a sweet puggle listed at our local Humane Society. It'd been about 6 years since our last pup passed away, Lil' Man is at a good age to help, and has finally gotten over his fear of dogs from getting bit when he was little...and there she was. It was fate.

Step 2c: Have your life partner smoke a brisket. Because you'll need that to make a Reuben.

Step 3: MAKE THE DOUGH in your largest bowl, because this is two loaves. Add the rest of the ingredients to the pre-ferment and mix, do some stretch & folds, then cover. It should look a bit like brownie batter but smell nothing like it. This was a VERY wet and sticky dough, but the recipe noted as much so I did most of my mixing with a spatula.

Step 4: Go run some errands like taking your new dog to the vet and groomer, and then come back to see THIS MONSTER. Divide into two greased loaf pans, add some extra caraway & coriander, cover and let proof overnight in the fridge.

Step 6: Bake, then remove from pans and let cool.

Step 7: Find things to eat with rye bread. I usually end up eating a lot of my sourdough slices toasted with some butter, but this bread has BIG flavor, and American butter is pretty tame in comparison. Thus, the reubens, and the tub of salmon cream cheese spread in my fridge.

Ruebens also require Russian dressing and sauerkraut...links take you to the two recipes I used for those. And if you're going to have sauerkraut around the house... might as well grill up some brats for your sis-in-law's birthday party.

Kvass recipe and results to come soon...

Seeded Sourdough Loaf

2023-09-02T09:36:00.000-05:00

After the flaxseed loaf last week I wanted try using some other seeds in bread. I found this recipe online and wanted to give it a whirl. We already had the sunflower and flax seeds on-hand, so I picked up some sesame & poppy seeds from the bulk section at Mama Jeans.

The dough was fairly sticky, but I opted to not add extra flour and just see if the water would absorb over time.

We let it rise while out running errands, and it had doubled by the time we got home. For the last couple loaves, I've used active (room temp after sitting out of the fridge overnight) unfed starter with a little bit of rye flour (about 10g) replacing some of the recipe's bread flour. This seems to be enough to boost the activity though the dough does take a little longer to rise.

After doubling, I shaped it into an oblong loaf, put it in a rattan basket with floured tea towel, and let it cold ferment in the fridge overnight. In the morning, it had puffed up nicely.

Transferred that onto parchment on a hot baking stone, along with a pan of boiling water on the lower rack to add some steam.

Unfortunately, I didn't score the top as well as I should have, so the loaf....got it's own ideas on where to split & rise...

The Rated-G side...

The....not so Rated G side.

The crumb and flavor turned out well--not too crumbly, great for toast, garlic bread, and sandwiches on the river.

Flaxseed Sourdough Bread

2023-08-18T10:05:00.001-05:00

This turned out REALLY well. I'm glad for that--I needed a win. The last couple attempts at making loaves had turned out really poorly: on one, my dough was looking okay, but I accidentally turned the oven off after only 10 minutes in the oven....needless to say that was not a great bake. Then I had some super active dough, doubled nicely, but then I got home late, put the bowl in the fridge without shaping it...and it deflated and didn't recover. But this one... possibly the prettiest loaf I have made to date.

We have whole flaxseed in the cabinet to use in smoothies or baking. I wanted to see how it would do in sourdough! Thankfully there was already a recipe out there, but it used only 60g of sourdough starter. I had a BUNCH of discard this week. (Note: I also got a new ring light to help with photos--not necessarily a planned purchase, but they were $10 in the clearance section at Hobby Lobby, which was cheaper than the clip-on version I'd been watching at Amazon, so...might as well.)

With the ring light.

Having learned my lesson from previous attempts at baking with cold, unfed discard, I pulled my starter out of the fridge the night before. By morning, the volume had doubled and it was all very bubbly and happy with no hooch on the top, so I decided if I used 120g of unfed active discard, instead of 60g of fed active starter, maybe things would even out. I also decided to mix up the flour recommendations a bit to help the discard. Rye flour is like a turbo-boost for starter yeast, so I reduced the amount of bread flour and added that in (in addition to reducing flour & water amounts to account for the extra starter).

INGREDIENTS:

120g sourdough starter, active
270g water (250g + 25g, as noted below)
400g bread flour
40g whole wheat flour
30g ground flax meal
10g rye flour
8g salt
10-20g additional AP flour as needed

DIRECTIONS:

Combine 250g of water & the sourdough starter in a stand mixer bowl & mix well with a spoon until dissolved.
Add the rye flour, whole wheat flour, and flax meal to the bowl one at a time, mixing after each addition to incorporate thoroughly.
Add the bread flour to the bowl, then place in the stand mixer and use the dough hook to combine, just until water is absorbed.
Cover and let autolyze for 1 hour.
While that's going, combine the remaining 25g of water (boiling--use the microwave) and the 8g of salt to get the salt to dissolve. Let it cool during the autolyze step.
After the hour is up, add the saltwater mixture to the dough, and mix. I found the dough with the original amount of flour was too sticky, so I added more flour while mixing. Mix for a total of 10ish minutes or until it forms a nice ball and doesn't readily stick to the sides of the mixer or the dough hook. This is in place of the more traditional "slap & folds" from the original recipe--I've found that 10ish minutes in the mixer is generally enough to build good gluten structure in the dough.
Once dough is mixed and smooth, cover and let bulk ferment. I let this dough go for about 5 hours while we were out running errands--the original recipe was only 2ish hours with the folding (but again--I'm using unfed discard and figured it would need more time to bulk up).
Once done with the bulk ferment, transfer onto a floured surface for shaping. I did a boule, and then used the basket of our salad spinner as my proofing bowl since has a lot of air flow to allow a skin to form on the dough. I placed the dough upside down onto a well-floured tea towel, then placed that inside the bowl and covered the whole thing with the shower cap, and put it in the fridge for a little shy of 24 hours.
Once ready to bake, I pulled the bowl out of the fridge and placed it on the counter while the oven was heating to 480F. I put my dutch oven in the stove as well so it would be hot.
When the oven reached temp, I flipped the boule out onto a piece of parchment paper, and then slashed the top with a razor that had been dipped in water (a tip from the original poster, which make the slash go MUCH easier than the last time I tried).
Using oven gloves, I removed the dutch oven, gently lowered the parchment into the pan, and then added an ice cube (for extra steam), quickly put the lid back on, and then put it back into the oven, reduced the oven temp to 430F, and baked for 35 minutes.
After 35 minutes, I removed the Dutch Oven and pulled the loaf out and placed it (and the parchment paper) directly on the oven rack for 7 minutes to allow the crust to brown.

And after all that....we have this!

Definitely the prettiest boule I've made to date. Nice ear, nice oven spring...after those last few big whiffs, this was a reinvigorating boost. Maybe I don't suck at making actual sourdough loaves! Since we're doing the Mediterranean Diet, I incorporated a slice into my breakfast the other morning.

Cottage cheese = poor man's ricotta

Sourdough Pop-Tart Toaster Pastries

2023-08-11T22:01:00.000-05:00

I realize I just said in my last post that we needed to make fewer sweets with the sourdough discard...but I was craving pie crust, yet we didn't have enough eggs for a quiche or other savory option. So...pop-tarts* it is.

*I don't think I can get sued by Kellogg's, right? Fine..."toaster pastries".

I used Little Spoon Farm's recipe, with minor modifications:

we made a double batch because I needed to use up a lot of discard
I used lemon juice in place of the vinegar (because we apparently don't own white vinegar)
No icing--I was running out of time so we just put cinnamon sugar on top after the egg wash
Filling: the double batch made 8 pastries, so we put strawberry jam in 2, peach jam in 3, and a mix of brown sugar & mini chocolate chips in the last 3. The chocolate ones were the only pastries that didn't leak and weren't messy to eat, so if I did these again, I might make them all chocolate, possibly with marshmallow bits too.

Heads up--because the dough needs time to chill, DO NOT wake up at 7am and think you'll be able to make this in time before church at 9am. I should have read the instructions better and made the dough the night before. Learn from my mistakes.

"S" for strawberry.

These reheat in the toaster really well, though a few of them were almost too big--they wouldn't fit on their side and when put in the toaster vertically, the top inch or so still stuck out. Aside from that minor issue, this was a pretty easy recipe and a good way to use up some discard, especially if you're craving pie crust. The original recipe calls for 25-30 minutes, but I found that 35-40 minutes in our oven got the best amount of crisp bottom and edges (had to bake them in two batches). I also recommend lining your cookie sheet with foil or parchment because the jam DOES leak out the edges.

Sourdough Pita Bread & Dehydrated Starter

2023-08-05T10:48:00.004-05:00

This week's mission: pita bread!

The Hubs & I recently got back from an anniversary trip down to the Yucatan Peninsula. After a week of drinking and eating as much as we want, we decided we probably needed to make some healthier choices once we got home. After some brief discussions of keto and a 21 day Daniel Fast, we landed on the more sensible, sustainable choice of The Mediterranean Diet. More fresh fruits & vegetables, simple ingredients, more fish, less red meat.

This much deliciousness, 3 times a day, for 7 days: time for a reset.

But then, the question came up: what do we do with the sourdough starter? We both acknowledged that we'd been eating a lot more bread since I started making sourdough--which has been delicious, but probably also needs to be moderated as well. Bread definitely isn't forbidden with the Mediterranean Diet, and homemade sourdough bread which has been slow fermented and is more easily digestible makes more sense than store-bought bread with more processed ingredients. But all of the sweet discard recipes we've been making for breakfasts and desserts? That should probably be ratcheted back. I also had been meaning to dry out some of my starter for safe keeping, just in case something happened to it.

Sourdough Insurance.

Like most Americans, when I think about Mediterranean breads, pita is the first thing that comes to mind. And it also seems pretty simple: make some dough, let it rise, then roll it out in to some flat tortilla-like rounds and toss in the oven to puff up. We used Farmhouse on Boone's recipe. Ingredient-wise we didn't vary from this so you can click over there if you want to try it.

Unfortunately, my dough ended up very wet and sticky--likely because of high humidity here since it's summer. I added a fair bit of flour when I was rolling these out into rounds...but then I also ran out of space to be able to flatten them out to 1/4 inch as in the recipe.

When I went to try to get them off the cutting board after a 30 minute rest, they were all stuck solid. After much scraping and cursing, what ended up on the pizza stone were irregular, oblong flatbreads, rather than pita.

Many choice words were flying around this kitchen...

After fighting with the first three, I balled all the remaining rounds up together with a little extra flour, kneaded, and then started pulling off smaller dough balls. With the main mass of dough over on one side of the board, I then had space to flour the surface and roll them out to 1/4 inch. So I ended up baking these one at a time. Not really ideal, but with the reworking & additional flour, they did finally start puffing up like beautiful little pita breads.

Final result was a little dry (probably because of adding so much flour on the back end just to keep them from sticking) but good flavor. Some were a little too thin and crumbly to use for pita pockets--they broke easily and leaked, but all in all, not terrible for a first attempt. Will I try again??? TBD. As you know, I like trying new recipes, and as it turns out, there's a TON of Mediterranean breads that aren't pita. In the meantime, it was delicious with hummus and worked fairly well as a pita pocket for these deviled egg salad sandwiches inspired by my friend Jo. (Basically, regular egg salad but with less mayo, more mustard, and diced homemade dill pickles in it.)

Apple Crumb Cake with Sour Cream & Sourdough Discard

2023-07-14T09:55:00.000-05:00

We were headed to a potluck with one of The Hubs' Homebrew Groups, and I needed something to use this week's sourdough discard in. We also had a container of sour cream that needed to get used up, and some of last year's apples from our backyard tree hanging out in the freezer. When I searched the interwebz for a "sourdough sour cream apple cake"...I got a lot of "sourdough apple cakes" and "sour cream apple cakes"...but no crossover. So--I found a couple different recipes I liked, mixed & matched, and this was the end result.

Note: This results in some of the measurements below being in grams, and some in dry measurements--this is because the sourdough substitution is based on weight, rather than volume--I removed 75g of flour and 75g of sour cream from the cake layer to make up for the addition of the 150g of sourdough discard.

INGREDIENTS:

Apple Layer:

3 cups frozen or fresh sliced apples, peeled (sliced thin or cubed)
2/3 cup sugar
1 Tbsp butter
1.5 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Cake Layer:

1.5 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 cup sugar
170g sour cream (about 2/3 cup)
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
150g sourdough discard
240g all-purpose flour (should be a little shy of 2 cups)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Crumb Topping:

1 stick unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup quick oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup pecans, crushed

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350F.
In a medium saucepan, combine the APPLE LAYER ingredients and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let simmer until apples are very soft, around 20 minutes. Remove from heat--it will continue to thicken as it cools.
In a separate medium bowl, melt the butter for the CRUMB TOPPING, then add the remaining ingredients and mix with a fork until crumbly. Set aside.
Using a large bowl and hand mixer, or a stand mixer, combine the room temp butter and sugar and beat until fluffy. Then add the eggs, sour cream, vanilla, and sourdough discard and mix until smooth.
Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and weigh the flour into the bowl, then add the salt, baking powder and baking soda. Place back on the mixer and blend until combined.
Pour CAKE LAYER into a buttered 9x13 pan and smooth out. Then add the APPLE LAYER onto the cake batter, and use a butter knife to swirl the mixture evenly into the CAKE LAYER.
Add the CRUMB TOPPING layer evenly across the top of the pan, and bake for 40-45 minutes.

Cake Layer.

Apple Layer added & swirled in.

Crumb Topping added.

This works well as a dessert, or as a coffee cake for breakfast!

Sourdough Naan & Beef Aloo Keema

2023-07-09T08:19:00.001-05:00

One of my go-to dinner options is this Indian (Americanized, I'm sure) dish, with ground meat, potatoes (aloo) and peas (keema). Meat, potatoes, a vegetable, a sauce, all in one pot. It's PERFECT, and DELICIOUS. Because it's an Indian dish, beef is a very atypical protein to use (I usually do ground chicken or turkey)--BUT...we have a quarter of a cow in our freezer, and I was making this on the 4th of July so... 'Merica.

I usually buy some naan from Aldi when the craving to make keema hits. But, now we have sourdough starter. So I used my discard and this recipe from Little Spoon Farm, and roughly 8 hours later, we have delicious homemade flatbread. The only deviation I made from their recipe was using sour cream instead of plain greek yogurt.

This is probably one of the easier recipes I've made. Just mix everything up together into a ball, cover and let hang out for 6-8 hrs, then divide into 8, flatten/stretch, and fry in a little bit of olive oil in a hot skillet. I was able to cook the naan one at a time while making the beef aloo keema in a separate pot on the stovetop.

The original recipe calls to cook this in a cast iron pan, and I would probably echo that in retrospect. My non-stick worked pretty well, but after making eight flatbreads (roughly 30-40 minutes of cook time) I had quite the accumulation of dark burnt oily residue in the pan. Took a lot of baking soda, a toothbrush, and elbow grease to knock that out.

Jagerschnitzel with Sourdough Spaetzle

2023-07-01T09:27:00.001-05:00

The Hubs asked for Jagerschnitzel as his special Father's Day dinner. And I did my best to accommodate, except that we could not find pre-breaded pork or veal cutlets ANYWHERE, and I didn't have enough time on Father's Day to make everything from scratch. So, this dinner was a little belated, but still delicious and well deserved. I'm thankful to have husband who is a true partner in marriage, sharing responsibility for things around the house, taking care of the kiddo, while also having our own areas of expertise. I do most of the cooking, not because he CAN'T, but because I enjoy it more. He enjoys working with his hands and fixing things. It's a pretty great situation.

Anyway...FOOD.

I bought this spaetzle maker on Amazon---not joking, looked it up--A FULL DECADE AGO. 2013. That's pre-kid, we still owned The Inside Scoop--purchased in June (full tilt ice cream season) so this was probably a stress purchase. And it's just sat in the drawer, in the package, since that time. The spider strainer was a much more recent purchase, but still brand new. Nice to finally get to use kitchen gadgets. :)

I used my sourdough discard to make this recipe--most recipes I found online called for a full cup (300g) of discard, which I didn't have. And there was a whole range of recipes out there--some called for 1 egg, some for 4, etc. So, I opted to just modify the recipe that came on the package of my spaetzle maker.

Because making THREE things from scratch for the same dinner is a hefty lift on busy summer weekends, I made the spaetzle the day before and put it in the fridge. Then day of, I sautéed it in some butter, seasoned with some salt, pepper, and parsley. Worked perfect.

INGREDIENTS:

Spaetzle (Makes....a lot. Like probably 8-10 side servings. We froze half.)

100g sourdough discard
325g all-purpose flour
2 eggs
2 tsp chicken bouillon powder
~200mL water (more or less as needed for consistency)
1/2 stick butter

Schnitzel

1 lb pork chops hammered to ~1/4-1/2 inch thick, or a butterflied pork loin, divided into 6 sections and pounded flat
Dry dredge: 1/3 cup flour, 1 Tbsp garlic salt, 1/2 tsp parsley, 1/2 tsp black pepper
Wet Dredge: 2 eggs, beaten
Final dredge: 2 cups panko
vegetable oil for frying
Lemon wedges for serving

Jager Gravy

2 Tbsp butter
8 oz button mushrooms, cleaned & sliced
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
4 Tbsp Tony Chacheres Roux Mix (FYI since the recipe isn't on the can--gravy is 2 Tbsp mix + 1 cup water)
2 Cups cool water

DIRECTIONS:

Spaetzle-

Start a pot of salted water to boil.
In a large bowl, whisk together the discard, eggs, and bouillon. Mix in the flour--you'll end up with a dry shaggy dough. Start adding the water and mixing in until dough is smooth, like thick pancake batter. The idea being that the dough won't just drip through the holes in the spaetzle maker as you add it to the hopper, so you can control the size of the noodles.
Let rest about 15 minutes.
Set the spaetzle maker across the top of the pot of boiling water. Add dough to the hopper in small batches. Slide the hopper back & forth to press the dough through the holes.
Once the noodles start to float up to the surface, it's OK to stir. Let cook for 2-3 minutes, then remove with the spider strainer.
Place in a container with some butter & toss. The butter will help keep the noodles from sticking to each other. If you're making this all the same day, you can serve at this point, or let cool and place in the fridge.
Reheating: Heat 1 pat of butter in a large skillet over medium heat--once melted, add the cold spaetzle (you will likely have to break it apart a bit with your hands) & season to taste.

Schnitzel-

Heat about 1 inch of vegetable oil in a deep pan, like a dutch oven, to avoid splattering. Target temp is about 330F.
Heat oven to 200F (for keeping cutlets warm if needed)
Once oil is up to temp, dredge pork one at a time through the flour, then egg, then panko and gently drop into the oil. My pot was able to hold about 2 at a time, so have some paper towels nearby for after they come out of the oil. Cook for about 2-3 minutes per side, until golden brown. Remove, drain, then place on a cookie sheet in the oven (if you're trying to keep them all warm for serving).
Serve with a light drizzle of lemon juice, and then either add gravy to the top, or on the side.

Jager Gravy-

In a large skillet, melt 2 Tbsp butter over medium heat.
Add onions & mushrooms and saute until tender & golden.
Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine the water and roux mix, whisk, and then heat to boiling. Let boil for 1 minute then drop temp to simmer.
Add mushrooms & onions to the gravy and let simmer until ready to serve. (I then used that skillet to heat up the spaetzle I'd made the day before.)

Served this up with some sauerkraut for the full German experience...and some green beans, because vegetables are important. :)

Also, as a point of process...even though the Aldi website may not mention it...they DO have pre-breaded veal cutlets in the freezer section, if you want to make this & are short on time. Found this out later. *sigh* Ah well--since we have frozen spaetzle now, that means next time we want this dish, all I have to make is the gravy!

Sourdough Adventures #21: Discard Chocolate Coffee Cake w/ Ganache

2023-06-24T20:51:00.000-05:00

We had a family reunion to attend, so I opted to bring a dessert made with sourdough discard. It's been a nutty month between vacation and coming back to work, coaching summer interns, etc. So I haven't made any actual sourdough bread in a while.

Natural light, some expert slicing by your MIL, and a brand new phone will do wonders for your food photography, just FYI.

This chocolate cake recipe from Milk & Pop looked gorgeous, so I settled on that. And while my version ended up a touch dry (I think I overbaked it a bit), I would not let that discourage you from trying it. I followed their recipe pretty tightly, only change was the addition of about a 1/2 Tbsp of cinnamon, so you can click the link to jump to their recipe if you're interested in trying. If I made this again I might add some dry instant pudding mix, or up the oil content just a bit, to ensure a more moist cake.

The original baker's trick for using sugar inside the pan to ensure the cake comes out cleanly? *chef's kiss* WILL DEFINITELY be using that again.

I DID opt for a different icing option than what Milk & Pop had shared, and instead made a simple ganache by heating

1 cup heavy cream

And then stirring it into

9 oz of semi-sweet chocolate

This made a gorgeous smooth glaze...and honestly, made too much. You could probably do about half that (4-5 oz chocolate, 1/2 cup cream) and have plenty to cover this cake. Thankfully, we had some strawberries on hand to help with the excess...

The cake was a hit at the reunion--up against some stiff competition. As with any Midwestern potluck--dessert options matched entrees and sides in a 1:1 ratio. And you've gotta try them all...it'd be rude not to.

Sourdough Stories #20 - Sausage Egg & Cheese Biscuit "Muffins"

2023-06-10T20:43:00.004-05:00

What's this? An original recipe!?!? YUP. Pretty proud of that fact. I needed to use up a bit of discard, as well as some sausage left over from dinner earlier in the week (homemade wonton soup, which was fabulous, FYI). And I figure if I'm going to try to pair my sourdough adventures with this blog, I jolly well need to post some actual original content, not just talking about other people's recipes and what worked & didn't.

I was very happy with how these turned out--crisp & flaky edges on the outside, tender interior and great flavor from the cheese & sausage. A perfect quick breakfast option.

INGREDIENTS: (makes 12 muffins)

8 oz ground pork sausage, browned & drained, seasoned with black pepper
100g sourdough discard
1/2 cup melted butter
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour (275g)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt (omit if you used salted butter)
2 cups of shredded cheese (I used a sharp cheddar)
2 green onions, sliced (or 1 Tbsp dried chives)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 375F.
Brown the sausage.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the discard, butter, egg, and milk until well combined.
Add the salt, garlic powder, then the flour, baking powder, cheese and onions. Stir until combined, but don't overmix.
Use a scoop to portion into a greased muffin tin, and bake for 20 minutes or until the tops are nice & golden.
Remove from the tin to cool, and eat while warm.
Cool any remaining muffins completely on the counter, and then store in the fridge for later in the week, or freeze if not planning to eat right away.

Sourdough Stories #19: Dinner Rolls

2023-06-10T19:28:00.000-05:00

Another winner with this recipe! The Hubs asked for some dinner rolls to accompany a meal. I had extra sourdough starter to use up, so we made a double batch and froze what we didn't eat that week for future meals (6 to a bag, since there's just the three of us).

So many of the dinner roll recipes I found on the interwebz involved adding instant yeast. Which I still don't want to do. I mean, what's the point of having sourdough if you're just going to add yeast? So I was thankful when Little Spoon Farm's recipe didn't call for yeast in the recipe.

I started the dough in the morning before church; about 5pm I used a kitchen scale to parcel the dough out into balls weighing roughly 65g each. We let these rest in the pan for a couple hours before baking.

These were easily as soft and fluffy as any yeast rolls I've had...maybe even on par with Lamberts??? Will definitely be making them again.