Friday, June 14, 2019

Repurposing the Sourdough Starter

In my retirement life, I enjoy a challenge-usually centered around food. Throughout my career as a registered dietitian, my goal was to entice customers to enjoy healthy foods. In our healthy cafe, we offered choices among many nutrient dense foods. I planned the meals and the recipes then-but didn't cook them. In my now role cooking for two, I enjoy trying techniques that would not have been practical in quantity food service. Making and baking with sourdough starters is one of them. 

Preparing the starter was interesting. Somewhere in the middle of the 10-12 days necessary to prepare the starter, I blew the bottom off a quart size Ball jar. Unsure what happened-like the movie the "Blob", the dough was all over my counter the morning after I fed it and sat in the middle of the counter.

The second attempt was better, but the bread I made was too hard for our senior tastes.  The third time was much better. I've enjoyed the tea bread made then.   

So one week later, it was time to feed the starter.  I pulled the jar from the refrigerator before going to bed.  In the morning, I portioned out 1 tablespoon of the starter and mixed with 50 grams of whole rye flour and 75 grams of water for one jar and repeated that in a second jar. In the late afternoon, when the starter became active, I refrigerated one jar and used the second jar ('the leaven") for this recipe.

  

Sourdough Pie Crust

(Makes 1 10-inch pie crust)

In a large bowl, mix leaven, flours, salt and sugar.
30 grams leaven
1 cup whole spelt flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoon sugar

Grate cold butter into flour mix.  With fingers, mix into flour.  Stir in egg yolk, then water.  Knead about 10 times.
7 ounce cold butter, grated with box cutter
1 egg yolk
30 grams ice water

Form a dough round, then flatten into a 7 inch disc.  Wrap in plastic and place in the refrigerator for 1-3 days.  When ready to bake, roll on a floured board into a round bigger than the pie plate.  Cut around edge of pie plate.  Roll scraps of flour, cut in strips for the lattice top.

Peach Filling

To peel peaches, immerse individually in boiling water for 1 minute.  Remove and immerse in very cold water for 10 seconds.  Peel and place in juice.  Repeat with each peach.
9 medium peaches
1 teaspoon juice

Remove pits from peaches and slice.  Mix flour, sugar and salt into juice.  The add peaches.  Spoon into pie plate lined with bottom crust (dough).  Form lattice top.
3 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon sugar

Sprinkle with grated nutmeg.

Cover with foil.  Bake at 425 for 30 minutes. Remove foil.  Bake 15 minutes more.

 
   
 
   

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