Sourdough

I started a sourdough culture from scratch a couple of weeks ago. I grew up eating sourdough bread made by my mom and I love the acidic taste. The starter my mom has is supposedly 50-100 years old. My starter is only 14 days old but it did pretty well. I made some no-knead bread today using starter for 20-30% of the dough and it turned out great. Hopefully Winnie (our dog) won't get these loaves off the counter.

No Knead Bread

I've been making bread more lately. These two loaves were made using the no-knead recipe that's been popularized by Mark Bittman at the NY Times. Drew sent me a tip about the America's Test Kitchen (ATK) version of this bread. I made both breads. The ATK version uses less liquid (66% liquid) than the NY Times version (86% liquid). The ATK version also uses a little beer and vinegar in their recipe to mimic some sourdough characteristics. As expected, the dough with more liquid had a more open crumb which I like. I could taste the beer/vinegar combo in the ATK loaf, but I don't think it made that much of a difference. Both loaves are good but I like the simplicity of the Bittman version. Easy to make in the middle of a busy work week.