Making a simple starter

Use a large mason jar, something that has a wide opening but that is easy to cover. The first few days you make the culture bigger by adding flour and water, then you do the regular “feedings”.

Day 1: In the morning, mix 100g flour + 100g water with a fork until well blended. Use warm water. Leave the jar loosely covered at room temperature, ideally somewhere warm. In the evening, give it a good stir with the fork.

Day 2: You might already see some bubbles. In the morning, add 50g flour + 50g water, blend well with a fork. In the evening, give it a good stir with the fork.

Day 3: You probably see lots of bubbles and it smells sour. Add 50g flour + 50g water. Blend well.

Day 4: Either it’s really bubbly and smells sour or it’s not, either way, it’s getting a bit big to just keep adding. So now, you switch to “regular feedings”, with a ratio of 1:1:1 by weight of starter, flour, water.

Pour out all of the starter, and poor back into the jar 100g of the starter. Add 100g flour and 100g of water, and blend well with a fork. Leave loosely covered somewhere warm.

Repeat this every day until the yeast comes alive (discard all but 100g of starter, and then add 100g flour and 100g water).

Obviously, if you weigh the empty jar, you don’t always need to pour out all the starter to weigh it again. However, there is a significant amount of evaporation, so you do need to weigh the contents once in a while.

Since you do this every day, it’s a lot of wasted flour from all the starter that you have to discard. Instead of discarding it, you can fry the starter in a hot greasy non-stick frying pan, with some salt, and toppings (green onions, cheese, etc), and make a flat bread!

Most of the sour smell and bubbles, I think, are from bacteria. Eventually, the yeast starts growing too. At some point (depending on your local conditions, but it will happen!), once you do the feeding, the starter will more than double in volume within 4-12 hour of the feed, and then slowly come back down. It’s unmistakable, and be ready for it to spill out of the jar (that’s why you don’t seal the lid, or it would break the jar). This means the yeast it’s doing it’s thing! It took 2 and half weeks for me, and it can take up to a month.

Eventually, you will know how long it takes for your starter to peak after a feed. This will allow you to time the feeding so that the starter is ready at whatever time you need it to make dough. The starter is ready to be used in dough if it floats (take a sample and put in water).

Now that you’ve blown through a substantial amount of flour to get this thing started, you can feed it less often if you keep it in the fridge. In the fridge, only feed it once a week. Feed it, and after 2-3 hours place it in the fridge (this gives it enough time to invigorate).

If you need to use it, you should let it warm up the night before you feed it. It all depends on how active it is. As long as it floats, it should work in dough.

• 2 cups tomato puree/sauce (cook ~6 tomatoes and puree)
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup of sweet (molasses, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, a combination)
• 1/2 tsp of each spice (salt, smoked paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, pepper)

Bring everything to a boil, keep boiling for 1min, then simmer for 20min. Place in mason jar to cool, seal lid when cool and place in fridge. Should keep for long, several weeks once open.

For making in a pizza oven (at high temp, no olive oil!)

Makes 5/3 pizzas (250g dough balls)

• 225g/135g ripe starter
• 600g/360g 00 flour
• 25g/15g salt
• 400g/240g water

Mix the ingredients, let sit ~20min. Two stretch and folds (or 10min in stand mixer worked well, even with such wet dough) and let rise until doubled (usual 4-5 hours). Divide dough into 250g portions and roll them into balls with no seams. Place on a tray, covered with plastic, in the fridge for at least 24 hours (seems ok after 3 days, 5 should be fine).

Remove from fridge at least 2 hours before using. Use lots of flour when rolling, and not not too much pizza sauce (~4-5 tbsp max), and not too much toppings (unless you just want to launch the toppings into the oven). Cooking at 400+C (not F) on the stone takes about 90 seconds..

For making in the oven (with olive oil in dough)

Makes enough for one thin crust large square pizza., or two thin crust personal pizzas (30cm, 300g each). Need to prepare the dough with ripe starter at least 24 hours before using.

Ratios are all based on starter: 1-2-3 starter-water-flour. To make 4 pizza doughs:

250g ripe starter

400g warm water

• 600g flour
• 50g olive oil
• 25g salt (1.5 tsp)

Combine all ingredients until uniform with a fork. Let rest 20 min, stretch and fold, rest 20min, stretch and fold. Cover, proof 3-5 hours at room temperature. It won’t quite double, but should have some small bubbles. Stretch and fold to make dough ball (or more if making more pizzas, 300g per pizza). Delicately remove from bowl, coat in oil, wrap in plastic, and store in fridge at least 24 hours (develops more flavour over time, max 1 week or so).

Remove dough from fridge just before using, stretch dough out on floured surface, it can be made very thin. Add as little flour as possible (ideally none), as it has a nice crispier texture without added flour. I usually drop the dough onto parchment paper with very little flour, sprinkle just enough flour on top so my fingers don’t stick, and then flatten it out.

Cook in hot oven, on pre-heated surface, ideally on pizza stone. Worked well at 475F convection for 20min, preheat the cooking surface, ideally a pizza stone.

• 270g ripe starter
• 345ml warm water (250-350ml)
• 500g flour (e.g 125g spelt + 375g hard white, or whatever, use more water if using whole wheat, e.g. 100g ww, 100g spelt, 300g white)
• 13g salt (2.5 tsp)

The recipe is very flexible and fool proof as long as you adjust the time to work for your starter, which needs to have been fed and expanded when used. I use 90g starter, 90g water, 90g flour. I usually feed it in the morning so that I can make the bread dough in the evening/late afternoon (and cook the following morning).

Combine ingredients loosely with a spoon. Start with dissolving the water and salt into the starter. Let the dough rest for 20min covered, do a “stretch a fold” , rest 20min more minutes covered, then rest and fold again, then rest 20min and one final stretch and fold.

Leave the dough proof somewhere warm. It should at least double in size, but if it’s warm, it can grow much more. It usually takes about 4-5 hours depending on the starter and the temperature. It’s important to put the dough in fridge after, say overnight, but at least a couple of hours, otherwise it’s too soft to make a loaf that holds form.

Punch the dough down, flatten on a table and get any bubbles out. Fold and make a ball with tension in the surface, shape into a loaf and close off the seam. Poke gently with a finger, it should spring back almost immediately. Let proof for ~45min (poke with a finger, and it should spring back, but not nearly as fast; it can take up to 2 hours).

Heat oven to 425F not convection. Heat a cast iron skillet (or some other vessel with good heat capacity) in the oven, as well as the surface on which the bread will cook.

Make slashes on the bread to let it expand (2-3cm deep). Add 1 cup of boiling water to the skillet. Place bread in (hurry to trap the steam) and cook for 15min. Then remove the skillet and let the steam out and cook another 28min. The bread should be edible, with a thin crust. For a thicker crust, lower temp to 275F convection, and cook another 45min.

Let it cool down before slicing, ideally more than an hour!

To make baguettes instead, make 2 baguettes (make a normal loaf, with a seam on the bottom, and keep making the loaf longer, about 40cm). Heat oven to 450F with pan for water. Make 2-5 diagonal cuts on top, and place in oven with 1 cup of boiling water into the pan. After 10min of steam, lower to 425F, remove steam pan, cook another 15min (total of 25min), then lower to 275F convection for 20 min. Cool before eating. Best baguette ever.

Recipe is almost completely based on this one by Anna Olson.

For schedule (say you want to eat them for Sunday breakfast), the easiest is to make the détrempe batter on the evening of day 1 (Friday), mix in the butter and do the 3 folds on day 2 (Saturday), and get up early on day 3 (Sunday) to shape the croissants and proof them. You can make the détrempe Saturday morning, and in principle, you could even do the croissant Saturday evening.

Détrempe:

• 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/2 cup milk (mix with water so that the combination is room temperature)
• 5 Tbsp sugar
• 2 1/4 instant dry yeast
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 30g butter (2 tbsp)

Mix flour, yeast, sugar in the stand mixer, then mix in the salt. Add liquid, while stand mixer is on slow. Add butter. Knead on slow for about 4 min (not enough to make a lot of gluten).

Roll the dough into a rectangle, and cover with a tea towel and loose sheet of plastic. Let sit a room temperature for 90min, then refrigerate over night (or for at least 1 hour).

Beurrage:

• 285g butter (room temperature)

Line a 8″ square pan with plastic, and use plastic to flatten out room temperature butter into a square. Refrigerate until it has the same consistency as the détrempe dough. If making ahead and refrigerating, then take out of the fridge about 45min before the détrempe.

Mixing butter and the three folds:

Roll the dough out into a square with a side about 1.5 times the side of the butter square. Rotate the butter square 90 degrees relative to the dough, and place it on the dough. Fold the 3 corners of the dough over the butter (see the video!).

Roll out the dough into an elongated rectangle, being careful to push outwards from the middle to squeeze the butter layer out uniformly. The fold the layer over itself (envelope fold), cover with towel and plastic and refrigerate. Wait at least one hour before the next fold

Do the second fold perpendicular to the first one, cover with towel and plastic and refrigerate. Wait at least one hour.

Do the third and final fold perpendicular to the second one, cover with towel and plastic and refrigerate. Wait at least one hour. Ideally, this last fold is done in the evening, so that the dough stays in the fridge over night.

Shape the croissants , proof and bake!

The above quantity will make 24 croissants. Divide the dough into 2, and replace half in the fridge.

Roll the dough out into rectangle so that it is about 5mm thick. This should make a rectangle about 16″x12″. Divide the rectangle into 2 lengthwise and make croissants (see video! do make the notch!). Brush egg wash on the croissants (1 egg + 2 Tbsp water), and reserve egg wash in fridge.

When you trim the edges to make the croissants, use the trimmings! For example, brush them with melted butter and then with brown sugar + cinnamon and roll them up! Or brush them with jam and roll them up!

Let the croissants proof, with some distance between them, in a warm environment for 2 hours.

Brush egg wash on again and bake at 375F for 15min (when they are a nice dark golden rod). There might be puddles of melted butter around the croissants…

If croissants are to be frozen instead, then freeze them after shaping (before first egg wash). Freeze them on a tray, then place them in a bag. Thaw + proof by leaving them at room temperature over night.

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Fry meatballs in butter. Sprinkle ~ 1/4cup of flour while frying. Once it’s all nice and brown, pour about 2 cups of broth, reduce until the right thickness, adjust seasoning.