Sourdough bread a good start for novice bakers

By Penny Kazmier

Daily Herald Correspondent

For some of us comfort food comes in the form of homemade apple pie or a bowl of chicken noodle soup; for Billie Miller of South Barrington, comfort food comes in a loaf of fresh-from-the-oven sourdough bread.

Sourdough bread differs from commercial yeast breads because it contains a live organism that feeds on carbohydrates, like flour and sugar. That “feeding” creates gasses that enable the bread to rise. Sourdough starter must be fed and protected from extreme temperatures and with proper care will last many years.

Today Miller bakes with starter she acquired some 15 years ago.

For this mother of seven children and grandmother to many, sourdough bread has become her passion. She used to bake bread only for special occasions, but now finds herself in the kitchen a few times a week baking upward of eight loaves, or two batches, of sourdough bread.

Yes, that’s about 416 loaves a year!

Yet the dough doesn’t always end up as a traditional loaf. Sometimes she kneads it into pizza crust or cheese twists, or adds cinnamon, or rosemary or olives. She’s perfected sourdough crisps, thinly sliced toasted treats rubbed with olive oil and kosher salt.

Miller’s interest in sourdough piqued about 20 years ago after reading “World Sourdough from Antiquity” by Ed Wood, a book she now calls her sourdough bible. The book chronicles Wood’s interest in sourdough and his ultimate retrieval of a sourdough culture from the site of an ancient bakery near the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Sourdough’s history, 100-plus pages of recipes for everything from classic bread to soft pretzels to pancakes, and information about cultures available from the Middle East, Europe and North America also are included in its pages.

Miller ultimately ordered a sourdough culture, a variety from France known for its mild flavor and forgiving nature.

Baking bread from scratch may intimidate some home cooks, but sourdough doesn’t require the same amount of attention as bread made with commercial yeast. The process takes roughly 24 hours but much of that is hands-off time.

It starts when Miller removes a crock of starter from the refrigerator. She places about 2 cups of the starter in a large mixing bowl, and feeds both the “mother” (in the crock) and the “child” (in the mixing bowl) some water and flour. After letting both sit, covered, on the counter for 12 hours, she returns the mother to the fridge for future use and gives the child some more flour, water, salt, and any other stir-ins (chopped olives and herbs, or raisins and cinnamon) and a brief kneading.

Miller then forms the dough into its desired shape, places it in appropriate pans, dusted with flour, and lets it rise for about two hours. With a preheated oven waiting, she scores the top of the loaves and gives them a sprinkle of salt or maybe a light coating of egg wash if she wants a glossy soft crust. To achieve a crunchy and chewy crust Miller keeps a bottle of water handy for strategic spritzing during baking. Within minutes her kitchen smells wonderful and the bread is cooling.

Miller’s family and friends (myself included) consider themselves blessed every time she doles out loaves of her freshly baked bread or other sourdough goodies.

“There is comfort in bread you don’t get from other food,” Miller says, adding that she feels like she shares a piece of herself every time she shares bread with friends.

Watching Billie helps take the fear of baking out of me and has inspired me to try making sourdough bread for myself. I can almost smell the bread now ...

Ÿ Penny Kazmier, a wife and mother of four from South Barrington, won the 2011 Daily Herald’s Cook of the Week Challenge.

Baking with sourdough

Order sourdough starter at:

<a href="http://www.sourdo.com">sourdo.com</a>

<a href="http://www.sourdoughbreads.com">sourdoughbreads.com</a>

Information and recipes at:

<a href="http://www.wildyeastblog.com">wildyeastblog.com</a>

<a href="http://www.northwestsourdough.com">northwestsourdough.com</a>

<a href="http://www.sourdoughhome.com">sourdoughhome.com</a>