Lessons in Baking

Sourdough is a mysterious thing. 

It nourishes.  And it teaches.

I don't need to share with you my common tale of woe.  Who really cares but me and my God?  But there has been real heartbreak in my life this week - hard lessons, dearly learned. 

I've cried till my head aches. 

And I have spent hours in the kitchen, kneeding bread - cooking, baking - thanking God for something to keep my mind occupied, my hands busy.

Part of my life is feeding my sourdough starter twice a day.

It's a ritual, like having a pet in a jar.  I love it, and I care for it.  But today...today was the first time I wept over it.

Nothing I can do myself will ever change a bowl of flour and water into something so complexly nourishing that my entire body benefits from it.


I can add flavor, provide optimium conditions, kneed it with tender care and strong hands, but without life, it will always just be a bowl of flour and water.


Life I can't see is swimming in the air around me. I add warm water to a handful of ground up grain and it becomes a sponge that can literally suck up life and feed it.


What goodness! What providence is this?

I can't make a sourdough starter.  All I can do is feed what someone else brought to life.  And as I contemplated the sorry state of my dashed hopes, I saw myself in that jar of bubbly, living goo.

I realized I am as lifeless and hard as a handful of flour. 

photo credit

Everything I need is hovering around me, but I can't get at it on my own.  Not without hot rain, drenching every dry, locked up, stingy corner of me.  Then I have the power to pull in that which will break down my hard places and make me soft and lovely.

What kind of lesson did your breakfast teach you this morning? 

Sourdough Success

I started with this:

It grew into this:

I mixed some of it up with flour to make this:

Then I baked it, and it became this:

And when it cooled, I sliced it, so it looked like this:

And now I'm gonna eat it, and I'm pretty sure you don't need to see a picture of that!

Sourdough Away!

I mixed up my sourdough...um...dough...today.

It's in the fridge, where it will be resting and rising for the next 14 hours or so. 

In the meantime, if you're interested in why sourdough is so dang good for you, here are a few things to chew on (and be grateful for, since it is Graituesday!):

1.  It lasts longer!  That's right - the combo of bacteria and yeast make the grain in your bread more resistant to mold and stale-ification (I made that word up.)

2.  It's easy to digest!  Be honest...do whole grains make you...um...*gassy?*  Yeah.  You're not alone.  That's cuz it's HARD to digest when it hasn't been broken down a little.  Again...bacteria and yeast double up to break down the hard to process stuff in wheat and even make white flour better for your bod.

3.  It's cheap.  That's right...the bacteria and yeast in sourdough starters are pulled directly from the air around it.  So you won't have to spend any yen on yeast.  It's like pulling money right out of the air!

4.  It's easy.  All you have to do to catch those yummy yeasts and bubbly bacteria is mix up some water and flour and leave it on your counter.  It requires a little planning, sure.  But that ain't hard.

Got any more reasons why you LOVE sourdough???  Post 'em!


Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

Bubbly, Lovely Sourdough Goodness

I have been learning some COOL stuff about bread this week.

Sourdough bread - for example - is incredibly cool stuff.  The starter - which is just flour and water in a mason jar - literally pulls the yeast and good bacteria out of the air around it and creates a  bubbling ball of nourishing life after just 12 hours on the kitchen counter.

See da bubbles?

All that life makes your insides SO happy when you eat it.

Bubbles = Life!

I've got a starter going, one which I hope will be the mother of countless loaves of yummy, chewy bread - and yes, even CAKE.  And I'm just fascinated by how this works.

I've downloaded the introduction to sourdough from an great site I frequent, Gnowflgins - weird name, awesome site - and it has just made me giddy with new information.

I'll be keeping you posted on how I progress with my sourdough.  I hope to master it and perfect it in the coming weeks.