I believe one of the most important things you can do as a parent is to help, or at least support, your kids in exploring their passions. This is actually one of the primary reasons we started homeschooling and choose to continue it. This story is a case study. My middle kid, the eleven year-old, recently got really into sourdough. I literally didn’t know the first thing about making bread in general, let alone sourdough. I was under the impression that a sourdough starter had to be gifted to you by a ninety-three year-old nona from the old country, and could only be activated by those who were worthy. Thankfully I was mistaken.

We have some wonderful friends who bake sourdough goodies and sell them at our homeschool every week. The ‘selling’ part is what piqued Jackson’s interest. Always looking to make a buck, he started asking questions. They graciously invited us over to learn their secrets when they whipped up their big batch the next week. The whole process, from start to finish, is a bit time consuming, so we ended up breaking it into segments and going for different stages of the process for three consecutive weeks. We called this ‘Sourdough Class’ because homeschoolers can’t resist a good educational plug. Jackson ate it up and was absolutely engaged from start to finish. He would come home after each session and write down the next steps in our family cookbook.

For my part, I did a quick Google search for ‘starters’ and was shocked to learn that you can just make one yourself, no wise nona needed! It turns out they are literally just flour and water, but despite Pinterest's guarantee that this was ‘easy’ and ‘no fail’, I had low expectations for our first attempt at a starter. I expected a moldy, smelly mess, like that one time we tried to make our own kombucha. Jackson persevered, feeding and offering positive affirmations twice a day for ten days. At that point we had a viable starter and it was time to christen it with a name. After some heated debate, Jackson went for the bike tie-in, and Erik Breadko was born, in honor of his favorite rider, Erik Fedko.

We have been at it for a few months now and can’t even remember our lives before Bready came into them. While our sourdough is still nowhere near as good or consistent as our mentors’, we love baking together and trying a new discard recipe that catches our eye.

I want to give another big thank you to this family for their generosity and patience. The mom literally spent a year reading books about crumb and hydration, just to give away her secrets to us for free! Here is the recipe and instructions that were handed down to us from them. There is a ton of cool science that I am not going to get into as my goal here is to ‘demystify’ sourdough. Nonetheless, I am steeling myself for comments from you purists out there who will squirm at my over simplification of their art form. I’m also throwing in some helpful tips and timing guide for those lost newbies among us.

Tools needed:

Big (ideally steep sided) bowl

Kitchen scale

Bench scraper

Banneton x2 (proofing baskets)

Lame (razor blade)

Dutch oven or cast iron with cover (ideally two)

Ingredients:

200g active sourdough starter

700g room temperature/ warm water

800g all purpose flour (we use Kirkland Organic)

200g whole wheat flour (we use Bob’s Organic)

Combine all of the above, just get on in there with your clean hands, and let rest for 30 minutes.

Add in:

20g salt

50g room temperature/ warm water

Kneed until this is all combined and let rest for 30 minutes.

This next part is spread out over a few hours, hence the time consuming part. Don’t be deterred! It just requires a minute or two every half hour, so really it is just about being present. Sourdough is such a metaphor. Anyway, you are going to do your ‘turns’ every thirty minutes for four hours. ‘Turns’ meaning reaching under your dough blob (still in your bowl) and folding the bottom up over, and in. You end up making a little package. You will feel the dough stiffening as you fold and tuck as this whole process is creating tension in the bread; a good thing.

Fast forward four hours, now five hours in total, and you are ready to shape. Dump your blob out onto a clean, floured surface. Cut the blob in half, as this recipes yields two loaves. Grab your bench scraper and start working your way around each blob, with the scraper at a 45 degree angle. The goal here is tucking the blob in and under itself. Again, you will feel the dough start to tighten as you work. Work your way around each blob until you have a smooth, neat little loaf. Let this rest for another thirty minutes. At this point I prep my baskets. Line each basket with a ‘flour sack’ style kitchen towel and flour that towel.

Next, use your bench scraper to flip each blob. Do another fold, kinda like you did for those four hours in the bowl. Pull and stretch, bringing all four sides (yes, Jax, I realize your circular blobs do not have actual sides) up, over, and in to the middle; another neat little dough package. Again, with the help of your floured scraper, pick up each blob and ease it into a prepped basket. The tucked side should be up. Cover with a towel and refrigerate over night-ish.

When you are ready to bake, pre-heat your oven and your covered dutch ovens to 475f. I want to point out that this is a departure from the 500f that we were taught. It turns out the ceramic dutch ovens we got for Chirstmas recommend a max of 475f, so we tried it and it works. Flip your loaves into your preheated pans, so that the fold seams you made are now bottom down. Using your lame/ exacto-knife refill you found in the garage, make a couple of slices in whatever pattern you’re feelin’. Urban legend is that forgetting this step will cause your bread to explode. Let me know if you test this theory. My boys are curious but unwilling to potentially sacrifice their loaves. Cover and place back in the oven. I also want to point out that baking cold things, straight from the the fridge, went against everything else I know about baking, but works here. Bake covered for about 25 minutes, you’re going for a straw color here. Remove the covers and bake for another 20 minutes until your crust is very crusty. Obviously all ovens vary, but this is the formula for our current erratic electric junker. Don’t be discouraged by trial and error here. Sourdough ‘fails’ make great croutons and bread crumbs!

Sourdough: It’s A Lifestyle