It's Alive! A Cheater's Guide to Sourdough

Hello, my name is Charise and I’m a cheat. When it comes to sourdough, at least.

Traditional sourdough starters use wild yeasts, captured from the air or from fruit, to leaven breads and baked goods. Making these traditional starters can be tricky. Depending on cleanliness, weather and location a traditional starter may--or may not--take off. It can be a frustrating process. You can buy true sourdough starters, but that’s just not my style (feel free to purchase one, if it’s yours.) If you know someone with a healthy starter, you could just ask for some and feed it. I don’t know any such creature. So, I cheat.

Cheater sourdough uses commercial yeast to give it a boost. It still sits out for several days to sour and produces good bread and other sourdough foods. No, it’s not authentic. I’m okay with that.

Cheater Sourdough Starter

This recipe is for just the starter, which will take you approximately four days to create. I’ll be posting recipes for using your starter, starting with my favorite breakfast treat. Stay tuned!

Ingredients:

2 cups of room-temp water*
2 cups all-purpose flour, or a mixture of all-purpose, whole wheat and rye
1 T active dry yeast

*It’s important to use filtered water, if your supply is chlorinated. Chlorine will kill the yeast.

Method:

Mix all ingredients in a large glass, plastic or ceramic bowl. The bowl should hold, at least, 2 quarts. Larger is better here. The starter will foam and rise quite a bit. 

I should note, that many sourdough starter recipes will tell you to never use metal utensils. I’ve never had this cause an issue, but I do normally use a wooden fork to mix and feed. Unfortunately, my fork went missing the day I made this. It has since been recovered. Phew!

Cover the starter loosely with plastic wrap. You may want to put your bowl into another larger bowl. Just in case. The reason for the precautions? Sourdough starter is like the paste you ate in Kindergarten. Once dry, it’s really hard to clean up. It tastes a lot better, though. I promise.

Now, you wait. For four days. If you feel the need to do something, you may stir the starter once a day. It’s not really necessary. You may notice the starter starting to separate. It will also separate during storage, once finished. The top layer is called the “hooch” and is perfectly safe. Just stir it back in before using. If at anytime the “hooch” turns pink, however, throw the starter out and start over.

On day four, stir and take a taste. If it’s sour enough for you, it’s ready to use. If it’s not, then let it sit out a few more days and test again. 

Put the starter into a quart mason jar, cover loosely with plastic wrap and store in the fridge.

Once you have an active starter, you’ll need to use and feed it once every two weeks. Using it more often is fine too. If, you are busy, and can’t get around to using it that often; remove 1 cup, throw it away and feed the starter.

To feed your starter, replace every cup removed with 1 cup of water* and 1 cup flour. I don’t know why 1+1=1 cup of starter, but it does. Once fed, leave the starter at room temperature for a few hours, before putting back in the fridge. I like to feed my starter in a bowl, and then transfer back to a clean mason jar, before putting it back in the fridge. Fed starter foams up.

Now go make your starter! You won’t want to miss out on these recipes.