(This week Michelle completes her sourdough adventure. (Shhhhhh……. but it ends with tasty perfection.)   I loved reading this Post, the last paragraph is filled with Morgando-wisdom. Thank you,  Michelle,  for helping me the past two weeks. When MIchelle gets her own Blog up and running, I will share that address with you.  Mary)  

by Michelle Morgando

These baguettes look good enough to eat. And, they didn’t disappoint.

Sourdough starters require time and commitment to keep them alive. Each week or so, they must be split and then “fed”, usually equal parts of spring water and all purpose flour. After one day, one half is ready to be used for baking; the other half is kept as the “mother” starter. As long as you have one of the mother starters in reserve, you are in business. I have also learned how to rev them up if they are a little lazy (potato flakes or apple cider vinegar) and I can now recognize the health of my starters just by smell and consistency. I also began experimenting with different flours, which I would add to the “baking” portion of the split starter. For these starters, I just followed my instincts. I now have an intense rye starter and a sour and pungent whole wheat starter, all ready to go.

Whole Wheat Starter

Rye Starter

This past weekend, I used the whole wheat starter to make whole wheat sourdough English Muffins. They are griddled in a little butter to cook instead of baked. They are soft on the inside, crispy on the outside and after toasting, a little sweet butter and homemade berry jam was all I needed. Grocery store muffins will never grace my pantry again. I also made some fig jam and an apricot and peach jam in anticipation of my next baguette foray.

Fig Jam

Peach & Apricot Jam

I then experimented with making homemade hot dog buns and they were delicious. They were not done with the starters but with a simple yeasted dough to get me back in the groove. After my small successes with the English Muffins and the hot dog buns, I was ready to tackle the baguettes.

Nancy had been playing with the recipe and sent me her revisions. I started with making a biga which is composed of the sourdough starter, water and flour. It is allowed to rise for a couple of hours and then has an overnight rest in the fridge. The next day I made the dough using the starter, let it rise and then back in the fridge overnight. On the third day, I let the dough rise a little and then formed the loaves, this time using baguette molds from my friend Scott. This eliminates the danger of deflating the dough after it is formed because it rises and bakes in the mold. To my delight, they rose beautifully, baked without deflating and had the characteristics of a good baguette, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. While these loaves do not have as many holes in the dough as some standard baguettes, I was happy, happy, happy.

Baguette Dough

Over the past few weeks of my baking journey I have been reading a wonderful book entitled “How to Bake a Perfect Life” by Barbara O’Neal. While it probably falls within the “check lit” fiction genre, don’t let that deter you from picking up a copy. It is a wonderful story about a woman who believes her sanity was saved by bread, particularly by her many times over great grandmother’s starter that was brought from Ireland and kept alive by the female bakers in the family. I believe, as the author does, that your starters, and ultimately your breads, take on the character of your mood. Whether you are happy, mad, sad or frustrated, it will show in the final product. I now know that my starters and breads will no longer sense my fear. If a recipe works, that is satisfying, if it does not; I know I am not a failure. It is just another opportunity to learn. I can’t wait to learn more!

Viola! Look at those Baguettes.