I Want to Eat You

If anyone wants to try their hand at sourdough baking just send me a SASE at

Jeff Bellamy
5043 Sunrise Hills Drive
Fair Oaks CA 95628

And I’ll gladly send you some.

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In prehistoric times there was a book called “Chocolate kicks and other fixes for chocolate addicts”. It had recipes such as chocolate weed, chocolate speed & chocolate hash. I can find no reference to this book online and the only proof I have of it’s existence is this recipe for Chocolate Junk.

1 cup heavy cream
2 T. cocoa
3 T. sugar
20 double saltine crackers (1 1/4 c.)
1 1/4 t. baking powder
4 egg whites
1 1/4 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
1 c. chopped pecans
1 bar of chocolate

Mix together cream, cocoa, sugar and 1/2 t. vanilla (do not whip) chill for hour. Set oven to 350 degree. Grease 9″ pie pan. Mash crackers to fine crumbs, mix in baking powder and set aside. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Gradually add sugar a little at a time beating until stiff. Gently fold in nuts and crumbs mixing well. Pour into pie pan and bake 30 min or until golden brown and firm. Let cool.

Beat chilled cream and spread on completely cooled cake. Cover top with chocolate shavings. It’s even better the second day if you have any left. Serves 8

Tags:   chocolate · chocolate junk · junkNo Comments.

I got a comment asking what I meant by proofed Starter. What I mean is you take your sourdough starter out of the refrigerator and feed it and wait until it warms up and is frothy. This assumes you have some starter and know what I’m talking about.

If you don’t you can create your own starter but you should give yourself a couple of weeks to get it going. You can buy sourdough starters online or you can get some free from Friends of Carl.  

http://home.att.net/~carlsfriends/

I really didn’t measure anything, I just poured the largest part of my starter which I’ve had out (not in refrigerator) for about a week (feeding it 2-3 times a day). I just started adding flour to it until it came together and estimated about how much salt it would take (never forget the salt).I stuck it out in the garage at about 50 degrees to retard (slow down the rising).

My starter was so exuberant at being out of the refrigerator and being fed reguarly that it just about tripled in volume in about eight hours so I folded it to reduce the volume and stuck it in the refrigerator until morning.It was back up to the same volume so I turned it out and formed it on a floured board.

I didn’t want to wait while it got back to room temp (I was a little worried I’d over proofed it) so I stuck it in a cold cast Iron dutch oven and stuck it in a cold oven and baked at 350 degrees for a hour then checked on it.As expected it had taken this opportunity to rise but had not started to brown at all so I set the oven for 450 degrees and gave it andother 30 minutes.

Tags:   baking · bread · handmade · sourdough · yogurtNo Comments.

Yogurt bread
3 c. proofed starter
1 cup plain yogurt
2 tsp salt
4 cups bread flour

I’m sure this is a common occurrence for many sourdough bakers. Your starter isn’t very sour. This is apparently because of the necessary bacteria (lactobacillus?) having ridden off into the sunset.

Another thing is the relatively short ‘fresh’ time of the loaf. Even though sourdoughs stay fresh longer than plain yeast breads, those with just salt flour and water dry up the soonest.

I combined these two problems with the leftover Greek Yogurt I had in the refrigerator (bought it for my dogs intestinal problem but she wouldn’t eat it) to make a really tasty rich bread with great chew and texture.

First a little background.

I had tried to make my own sourdough starter with just flour and water and wasn’t too successful. This was probably a combination of using bleach bread flour, tap water and a lack of patience. I ended up tossing some dried “Friends of Carl” starter and have been using it for the last half a year.

I had first gotten into baking using recipes for the food processor. It was quick and easy. When I started using a sourdough starter I just kind of did it by feel, arbitrarily using a cup of starter and then adjusting the liquid until I got it right.

Then my electric scale went out. It’s a Salton #3700 and it indicated that the batteries were low but replacing them didn’t help I still got the low battery reading.

So I started using measuring cups. Then I started just mixing things up in a bowl by hand. Just trying to make the baking experience basic and unencumbered as possible.

A couple of days ago I took my starter and added a cup or so of flour and equal amount of water, mixed it up and left it over night. I decided to just take most of the starter I had about 3 1/2 cups and then just ad flour to it until I had a non sticky ball.

I wanted some sandwich bread so I split it in half and made two 9×5 loaf pans full.

Worked out really nicely except for one thing. Anybody catch it?

I FORGOT THE SALT

OK so now the Yogurt Bread.

I took the same approach as before. Proofed my starter over night. Put three cups of starter in large mixing bowl. Added a cup of plain yogurt and stirred. I decided to mix the salt in with the flour so I took 4 cups of bread flour (I knew it would take more flour than this and mixed 2 tsp salt into it.

Then I started mixing flour into the starter yogurt mixture a cup at a time and then a 1/2 cup at a time until I had a shaggy ball that was pulling away from the bowl.

I turned it out onto a floured board and kneaded it, adding flour as necessary until I had a nice unsticky ball.

I lightly oiled a straight edged 1 gallon Tupperware container and dropped the ball in, turning it over to get a light coating of oil on both sides. I marked the side of the container for double the height of the ball, covered lightly with plastic wrap and set aside to rise.

When it had doubled I turned it out on a floured board. I folded and deflated but didn’t bother kneading.I cut it in half with a board knife and shaped it for two 9×5 loaf pans which I lightly oiled. I set those aside to rise lightly cover with plastic wrap. Too avoid sticking you and spray some PAM on the plastic or sprinkle some flour on the loaves. I chose the latter.

I wanted to wait until the loaves had risen 1″ above the tops of the pans. When they had just started to rise above the tops of the pans I decided to take a different approach. I dusted the loaf tops some more and chose not to split the tops. I wanted to try and get a little extra oven spring so I put them in a cold oven then set it for 450 degrees and baked for half an hour.

I turned the loaves out of the pans onto a wire cooling rick and taped the bottoms. I put one back in the oven (not in it’s pan) for a few minutes for the bottom to finish browning.

I am really happy with this bread. Baked it last night. Just had a slice this morning with a little Irish butter. Has a great tangy taste which I bet will be great for a tuna sandwich.

If you have any questions please contact me and please give me feedback if you try it yourself.

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