Bagels

This has been in draft for a while, waiting for some text.

We made sourdough bagels, at home. Much easier than you think, and exceptionally tasty with smoked fish.

Followed instructions from Erin @ bearing blog.

Streamlined Muffins

So I modified a bit from the last post about Elizabeth Street Sourdough Muffins and can report good success.

Changes: Instead of the double-refresh, I just scooped out 1/2 cup of the batter and saved it as the future starter and used the rest as my base. Then added 1 cup of oatmeal in the morning, when I added the other ingredients to the batter; used partially rehydrated dried apples (~1/2 cup) and walnuts (~1/2 cup). I came out with 12 nicely-sized muffins all of which are now gone.

Elizabeth Street Sourdough Muffins

So Erin came to visit a few weeks ago bearing a jar of active sourdough starter and instructions. Her original source was GEM Cultures, Inc. out of Lakewood, WA, and this recipe is originally from their instructional pamphlet, but with significant modifications. Improvements in my mind, but you might disagree.

Elizabeth Street Sourdough Muffins

In the morning before you want to make muffins, refresh the starter by combining ½ cup fresh starter, 1 ¼ cups of warm non-chlorinated water (I use from the Brita pitcher and microwave for about 1 minute), and 1 ½ cups of flour in a relatively large bowl. Cover with a plate and set this in a warmish spot for the day or several hours until it is bubbly.


In the evening before you want to make the muffins: Combine ½ cup fresh starter (removed from your refreshing above), 1 ¼ cups of warm non-chlorinated water (I use from the Brita pitcher and microwave for about 1 minute), 1 ½ cups of flour and 1 cup of regular rolled oats in a relatively large bowl. Cover and set in a warmish place for overnight. Grease your muffin tins. Seriously, the paper liners do not work. When I made this it made for 2 dozen smallish muffins, but in a regular muffin tin, not a mini-one.
Combine these dry ingredients in a separate small bowl: ¼ cup flour, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 T baking powder. The next step could be done in the morning or evening. Combine these wet ingredients in another separate small bowl: 3 T maple syrup, and 2T fat (not solid). If you plan to mix in nuts or raisins (up to 1 cup in total), get them out now so that you don’t forget. Go to bed.

In the morning, get up and turn on the oven to 400oF. (Now’s a good time to get the coffee going, too.) Beat an egg into the wet ingredients bowl. If you plan to add blueberries (1 cup) to the muffins, get them out of the freezer and toss them with some of the dry ingredients bowl. Dump the wet ingredients (if your fat in the wet ingredients turned into a solid overnight, then you need to re-liquify it and re-think the measuring the next before idea) into the sourdough batter (which should be a little bubbly) and mix a little. Sprinkle the dry ingredients into the batter and mix only enough to eliminate dry spots. Gently fold in the frozen blueberries. You don’t want to overmix because it makes the muffins tough.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tins. Bake for about 20-25 minutes while you shower.

Enjoy hot muffins for breakfast and bask in the adulation of your family.
These are pretty smallish muffins, and I find that eating 3 (with butter and maple syrup) kept me full until lunch. It is a rare breakfast that can claim that.

When I did them with raisins and pecans I didn’t need the maple syrup, but I had also used the dust from 2 boxes of Raisin Bran instead of the 1 cup of oats, so there was more sugar in the batter.

Chocolate chips would also be a good addition, instead of blueberries, but maybe with dried cherries and/or almonds.

In case you are wondering, I did this with 100% whole wheat flour.

Sourdough Baking

I have made three attempts at baking with sourdough and results have been mixed.

Sourdough pancakes were enjoyed by all, but I think that they were a little tough -- maybe too much mixing and therefore over-developed gluten?

Sourdough bread was tastily sour, but it failed to rise much and was a bit flat for my liking. Also, it seriously needed salt. The taste was flat, too.

Sourdough bran muffins were good, but I didn't taste the sour at all. I used the dust from 2 boxes of Raisin Bran as the "1 cup of bran, any kind", and I used brown sugar instead of honey so that I could measure it the night before. I put in lots of extra raisins and nuts. The recipe stated that the yield was 6 plain muffins or 8 with raisins and nuts, but I must have the wrong size muffin tin because I got 15. Oh yeah, I should have greased the tins instead of using papers because the muffins stuck.