No-Knead Sourdough Bread

It's bread baking day today!  It has been a really really long time coming.  I've carefully nurtured my sourdough starter for two weeks, feeding it twice a day and keeping it not too warm and cozy but definitely cozy and not cold.  I've watched the video from breadtopia.com (about 500 times) which I HIGHLY suggest. So here we go...

You can read all about my sourdough starter experience here.  After about two weeks (and finding a weekend in which I had a free 22 hour window to rise and bake the bread), I gathered all of my bread making stuff together.

My bread-making stuff.  Gathering everything together is actually an important first step for an adult ADHDer.  You don't want to be in the middle of something and have to madly search for something like wheat germ (which you might notice is missing from the picture).  NOTICE the fancy apron from my fancy-apron-making days!

 Step 1: Mix your ingredients

No-Knead Sourdough Bread Recipe

1 cup whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups white bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup purified water
1/4 cup sourdough starter (stirred down)


Mix your flours and salt in a separate bowl.  Stir down your starter and measure out approximately a 1/4 cup.  Stir into the water then pour into the flour mixture.

Mix with a large whisk or spoon till the water and flour is all incorporated.  I had to ditch the whisk at the end and use my hands.

Once your dough is mixed, gently form into a ball, cover with plastic and let rest for 18 hours.

Step 2: Final Proofing

18 hours later - look how much the dough has risen!

Scrap it out from the bowl onto a well-floured bread board.  It will be really wet and sticky so flour your hands as well.

Gently make it into a rectangle and then fold into thirds and then over again so that it forms a ball.  Cover with plastic and let rest for 15 minutes.

With the metal scraper, carefully lift and place into your proofing basket.

You need to spray the basket with cooking spray and generously sprinkle with wheat germ - otherwise the wet sticky dough will forever stick to your rattan basket.

Cover with a cloth for final proofing for 1-2 hours.  

Step 3: Baking - Finally!

Sometime during the last 30-40 minutes of rising, preheat your clay baker and oven to 500 degrees. 

You'll know your dough is ready to go when you gently poke it and it doesn't spring back but stays indented. Look how much it has risen!!

When your oven is heated and your dough is ready to go, PUT ON YOUR OVEN MITS and carefully dump the bread onto the base of the clay oven.  I did not get a picture of this because I needed both hands to transfer it and really I am not talented enough to take a picture when both hands are being used in a 500 degree oven.

Bake for 30 minutes at 500 degrees.  PUT YOUR OVEN MITS BACK ON and take off the lid.  Change your oven temperature to 450 degrees and continue baking for 15 minutes.  Take it out, put it on the rack for a couple of hours and enjoy your bread!!!!  YUMMMMM with LOTS of butter!!  Yummmmm!

Brown Sugar Body Scrub Recipe

A Basket of "Goodies" - Handmade Brown Sugar Body Scrub

If this blog were titled Fun With Adult ADD it would be a pretty accurate title description and not at all disrespectful.  Those of us with add/adhd are allowed to have a little fun with it.  Which brings me to my point.  I realize I have yet to make a single loaf of bread yet this week - though I've been working on it and talking about it enough.  I have kind of temporarily moved on to a new project however: Homemade bath scrubs.

I decided I needed to make a little treat for my fabulous co-workers for Halloween.  I wanted this treat to be seasonal, fun, and homemade yet I didn't want it to be too caloric. (So yes, the Paula Dean's Ooey Gooey Pumpkin Butter Cake was out of the question.  I'll save that for another time.)

While I was searching for non-caloric versions of fall-themed treats (they don't exist) I came across some recipes for Brown Sugar Bath Scrubs and decided that would just about fit the ticket.   I couldn't decide which recipe to use- they all looked so yummy -  and was too impatient to try a few in order to find the best one so I decided to just buy all the ingredients from each and throw a little bit of this and a little bit of that in till I had it right.

All the ingredients from ALL of the recipes!

My Brown Sugar Scrub all mixed up. I had to use a stew pot because my largest glass mixing bowl wasn't big enough. 

Here is the recipe I came up with:

Brown Sugar Body Scrub

3  2 pound bags dark brown sugar
3  cups white granulated sugar
1  cup honey
4  cups coconut oil (I used refined because it doesn't have a coconut odor)
2  cups safflower oil
4  Tablespoons vitamin E oil
4  teaspoons ground cloves
2  teaspoons ground ginger
3  heaping Tablespoons cinnamon
2  Tablespoons vanilla
1/2 cup kosher salt (I think this was a mistake - too gritty)

Mix it all together.  I was able to fill 14 half-pint containers and had LOTS left over.  Probably enough for another 6-7.

I cut circles out of really cute halloween/fall scrapbooking paper (a left-over from my past card-making obsession.)

I added hand-written labels that I found in the same section as the Mason Jars.  I was going to print some cute ones on the computer but honestly I think the the hand-written look adds a nice touch.

Oh and did I mention this is really yummy if you accidentally ingest some?  Disclaimer: You really are suppose to use this product on your body - it should not be considered a food product.  And don't even ask me how I know how yummy this is because I'll only deny it... but used that way it is NOT non-caloric in the least!

Having the Right Equipment For Your Obsession - or what do you really need to make a loaf of bread?

The thing about obsessions is that they can be very costly.  You've got to have the right equipment right?  Sometimes, (after I've spent a ridiculous amount of money on something I thought at the time I HAD to have) I wonder if it wouldn't be better to just try and use what I have on-hand while I'm deciding if this is something I even want to try to do again.  I'm reminded of the summer I decided to grow my own tomatoes.  In all practicality I should have just thrown a few plants into the ground and watched the tomatoes wither and die before I remembered that no, I don't have a green thumb.  Never have and likely never will.  Instead of taking the prudent path though, I began my obsession by spending hours on the interwebs and pouring over countless catalogs before I came to the conclusion that I HAD to have the very highly priced specialized tomato growing self-watering planters...with climbing cages...and special soil and food...and the special red plastic sheeting that covered the special tomato growing soil.  I have no clear memory of what all this cost - because I try to quickly blank that out of my memory when it happens; but I do remember thinking after successfully harvesting the one tomato I had managed to save from blossom rot that this was indeed a very expensive tomato!  Each slice probably cost me around ten dollars.  SO not worth it!

It's the same with every obsession I have.  It will be the same with the bread.  Going on the various sourdough sites I determined that it was essential to have a little stone bowl/oven - otherwise I will NEVER get a golden crust with velvet crumb.  I found several online from various sites but ended up with this one from Amazon:

The Sassafras La Cloche Brick Oven

Round Bread Proofing Basket

Of course you can't make home-crafted bread without a specialty bread proofing bowl like this one.  A regular round basket (like the many I have in my cupboards) would never do.

And in all honesty as long as you are going all out, you would be very remiss not to include the important little tools like a special Danish dough whisk, plastic bowl scrapper, and stainless steel dough-scrapper (because your regular old mixing spoon and pizza spatula would constitute a dough-handling failure).

 So there you have it.  I haven't even made one loaf yet - but I sure do have the proper tools for the job! I have no real idea how much they all cost - but once that beautiful loaf is made, I'm thinking that each slice have about the same value as a slice of home-grown tomato.

How Should Sourdough Starter Smell?

Any ideas?  Anyone?  It started out smelling a little yeasty - which is probably normal. Then it started smelling a little beer-like which again makes sense and is probably normal.    Today it smells a little like varnish...kind of like a very mild furniture varnish.  What does this even mean?  Is my dough-baby going to die? Are we all going to be sick if we eat varnishy bread?

I found a blog called A Feast For the Seasons in which it talks about varnish smell. Actually they refer to it as a nail varnish remover smell which is not quite where mine is.   According that blog "If your starter smells like nail varnish remover, then lower the storage temperature and, again, feed for a few days more."  

Really? I have to wait a few days more?  But I'm a very impatient compulsive obsessive individual.  When I want to do something I want to do it NOW! And I really wanted to get started on the bread-making process today.  I'm all excited because I found this great video on breadtopia.com about the no-knead sourdough method.  It takes 18 hours of rising and I wanted bread on Sunday.  What to do...what to do....

Is this what my starter is suppose to smell like?

Surely not THIS!

This is a lovely loaf indeed!  Shouldn't my sourdough starter smell more like this?

My First Dough-Baby or Working With Sourdough Starter

I have a baby - a dough-baby.  I nurture and coddle my dough-baby, lovingly and carefully feeding her twice daily in the hopes that when she grows up she will give me a nice, round, crusty loaf of bread.

My sourdough starter in action.  It needs to double in size after you feed it with flour and water.  About an hour ago it  up to the level of the red line. So yes, it is alive and well.  Dough-baby's doing good!

It all started with a recent trip to Disney's California Adventure.  They have this bakery there called the Boudin Bakery.  You can go on a tour of the bakery where you learn all about the sourdough process.  You even get to sample a bite of the most amazingly flavored velvety textured sourdough bread.  It's hardly fair. That little sample is almost like a tease.  So of course you can  (and should) also buy a loaf while you're there - which fortunately for us lasted the trip home - but unfortunately for us not much longer. I bought a random loaf in the grocery store to fill the void but found it seriously lacking.  I found out that some grocery store sourdough isn't even "real" but flavor enhanced (i.e. NOT really real) sourdough. I decided that if I wanted the authentic sourdough taste I would have to make my own.  Thus started my newest obsession...

I learned that it's not as easy as simply saying "I want to make sourdough bread."  Sourdough is a practice and an ancient art.  Sourdough is a natural leavening you can't just go BUY  in a store like yeast or baking powder but have to grow and nurture.  I found some great resources to help me like sourdoughhome.com and breadtopia.com.  You can either start from scratch and make your own starter (not recommended for beginners) or start with someone else's -  keeping and caring for it till it is grown and matured and ready to use.  You can do a quick web search and find a massive amount of sources for sourdough starter.  I chose to go with one I found on Amazon that is sold by Breadtopia.com.

Dried Sourdough Starter.  Just feed with flour and spring water and watch it come to life and grow! More exciting than Sea Monkeys!

It's been about a week of careful feeding and nurturing and telling her she is the most beautiful and lively dough-baby ever.  I think she is almost ready to go to the next level.  Perhaps by this Sunday we will have a lovely warm loaf of sourdough bread!  I'll keep you posted!

Flighty Obsessions?

I tend to obsess.  I do.  I ultra-focus on something; learning and experiencing anything and everything there is to know about the "thing".  Until I get tired of it and then I don't.  Then I move onto my next  obsession.
You'd like an example?  Let's see...in the past 15 years I have become an "expert" in:
cake decorating
wall stenciling
traditional scrapbooking
digital scrapbooking
rubber stamping
candy making
working out ( I actually set my babies in front of Barney with their little dishes of cheerios for 2 hours everyday while I worked out on the Exercycle.  I did lose massive amounts of weight though!)
Cricut cutting machine
jam/jelly making
freezer meals
soap making
beading bracelets
Bento Boxes
short story fiction writing
and reading - I went through a science fiction phase...and romance/mystery/true crime/horror/etc. phase
aprons - making and collecting
I've colored my hair every imaginable normal hue
I've taken classes - I've taught classes.  I've done it for fun and I've done it for money.

What else?  Blogging...yes blogging.  At one time I had three very active "mommy blogs". They were super cute too and had all the bells and whistles.   That's right, once upon a time I used to blog.  For love or money? I was never sure which.  It started out for love, morphed into money - which there never was much of - and the blogs ended up being not much to love either.  This one is just for fun. For me.  Please join me as I share my latest obsession- whatever that may be...