Sourdough and Social Distancing

I always thought of myself as the kind of person who would be really into working from home - but I think that subconsciously that fantasy always involved getting to host endless dinner parties and entertain friends, so the last two weeks have been a challenge.

The previously mentioned Tiny Dog and his even Tinier Unicorn

My first 10 days was completely solo, as I decided to trade the city and condo life for my parents empty home in Niagara. I thought if I was going to commit to social distancing it would be easier with a backyard instead of taking Tiny Dog up and down the elevator multiple times a day to pee.

It was way harder than I expected. I started to feel isolated. Lonely. I started to force my friends to do FaceTime wine hour so I would get a little social time.

They are good friends. I was very needy.

Now that I’m rounding the bend on my second full week of social distancing - in a more full house with my parents, who came home early from their winter in Arizona given the circumstances, and their two dogs quickly tripling the number of heartbeats under this roof. I’m settling in to a routine, grateful that I am part of the lucky few who can continue to work fairly seamlessly from home, and reminding myself that I have done this before.

In one of my many previous lives, I spent my days running a startup soap company. I was in the middle of nowhere at my parents farm - or as a start up I referred to it as free lodging and manufacturing space! One of the things that I missed being so far from civilization was good bread. So I worked on my bread game. Every week was a couple of baguettes or a good crusty loaf of french bread, and after a few failed attempts - Sourdough.

So I thought I’d take the time, now that I have it, and get back to that. Last week I made a sourdough starter. (full disclosure I made two since the first one fully exploded in the pantry!)

1 cup of water

1 cup of flour

8g of yeast

I mixed it up and let it sit out on the counter until it no longer smelled like yeast, but instead it had a that unmistakable sour aroma - and today, 5 days later, it was ready to go.

Since I’d been making some regular, yeast risen, loaves the last couple of weeks I thought I’d switch it up and make an Herb and Cheddar Sourdough.

Here’s what I needed to get started.

2 1/2 - 3 1/2 cups of flour (plus extra for dusting and to feed the starter)

1 1/4 cups warm water

1 heaping tablespoon kosher salt

1 cup of grated old cheddar

1/2 cup of minced fresh herbs - I had parsley and chives on hand but oregano or basil would be lovely as well.

1/4 cup of sour dough starter

I combined 2 and 1/2 cups flour and the salt in my mixer first, and then added the starter and water. Once the dough was starting to come together I added in the cheese and herbs and let the mixer run with the dough hook for a couple of minutes. At this point I added about a 1/2 cup of flour into my sour dough starter, mixed it in, and put the container in the fridge for another day!

Then I turned out the dough out on to the counter. It was super wet and sticky so I slowly kneaded in more flour till it reached a springy consistency and didn’t cling too much to my hands. I finished it by forming it into a smooth ball.

Then I placed it into a lightly floured bowl and covered it with a tea towel. You can use a fresh bowl if you want, I like to just clean out my mixing bowl and use that.

The first rise is about an hour, then you turn it out on to the counter and fold the dough back in on itself, reform the ball, and put it back into the bowl to rise. It was a little chilly in the house today, so I used a trick I learned eons ago and put the oven on to 150*F for just a few minutes. So soon as it was a little warm I turned it off and put my bowl in there. So the dough could be a little warmer as it rose.

After another hour and a half (it only needed to be 30 minutes but I was busy with actual job) I flopped the dough back onto a lightly floured counter and lightly folded the dough in on itself, flipped it over and reformed a ball.

At that point I just threw the tea towel on top of it, cranked the oven up to 450*F and put my dutch over with it’s lid on into the oven to heat up.

Once the oven was at temperature I pulled out the pot, and transferred the dough into it, flipping it one more time so the smooth top was on the bottom of the pot. I normally would have scored it with a knife, but I forgot!

I baked it for about 30 minutes with the lid on, then checked in. At this point if the loaf had been lighter in color I would have let it back a little longer with the lid off, but this bad boy didn’t need it! If you aren’t sure if the bread is cooked just give it a tap on the bottom, fully cooked the loaf should sound a bit hollow.

I took it out of the pot and let it cool on a rack to avoid steaming the crispy bottom. Then used all of my willpower to not immediately slice into it.

Anyway, my hope is to add this blog back into my life and make it a part of my routine again. So hopefully there will be many more posts to come.

In the meantime, stay safe and be kind to yourself and to each other.