My most recent baking experiment is sourdough. Yep, wild yeasties, captured, harnessed and put to work making our bread rise. I'm rather astonished that it actually worked. Here's how it went (if you want all the details, let me know):
After a simple slurry of flour and water ripened, (that is, got past the "stinky sock" phase where bacteria outnumbered the yests to the place where bacteria and yeasts are nicely balanced and it smells, well, like sourdough), I tried baking. The first loaves came out with pretty good flavor, but I didn't develop the gluten enough--they spread all over. The second attempt was good, but stuck to the peel, so it got a little squished. Great flavor, though!
One side effect of sourdough is that you wind up with excess starter. Each time you feed the starter, you're supposed to discard half, basically so you don't wind up with gallons and gallons of the stuff (I almost did...). Discussions abound about what to do with the so-called discard. I've been making pancakes (pretty OK) and english muffins (really good). I'm still only about three weeks into the experiment, and have lots to learn. Especially figuring out exactly how much starter I want to keep on hand at any one time, so it doesn't take over the kitchen. It's a great lesson in exponential growth!
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