Sourdough Roundup

There's been a lot of bread in our house lately, but it sure has been delicious. You might remember that when my dad was out of town my mom got really bored and experimented with creating a sourdough starter. We weren't really sure if it would work, but it has turned out quite nicely. I bring you my review of the recipes we've tried:

The original starter is here, if you feel like being adventurous:
Sourdough Starter

First we tried just a normal loaf of bread: Sourdough Bread
The starter was only a week old at this point, so it didn't have very much of that sour taste, but it still made a delicious bread. Crusty outside, chewy middle. Yum.

Then we had French Onion Soup in bread bowls: Sourdough Bread Bowls
The bowls didn't rise as much as we would have liked, so they were more cups than bowls, but still tasted awesome. If you want Mom's French Onion Soup recipe (it's only in her head, not on the internet), let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Next we had pizza: Sourdough Pizza Crust
This was a great, light crust for a pizza. Not quite as crispy as the usual crust we make, but still really good. It might need to be baked a few minutes before adding the toppings, and maybe up the temperature to 425 or 450, not 400 like the recipe says. We tried this with all white flour and with 1/2 cup of the white flour replaced with wheat flour. Both were good.

And, finally, challah: Sourdough Challah
The girls especially seem to like this better than any of the other challahs we've made (except for maybe the pretzel challah). The leftover challah is also very good for French Toast, and this recipe makes quite a bit (we do one large challah, plus three small ones), so you will have leftovers.

So, that's the beginning of our adventure into sourdough. We will definitely let you know if we find any other gems. In the meantime, it's Girl Scout Cookie time, so if you know us personally and are local, Liana would love to sell you some cookies.