In the Year of Fearless Baking: Episode #3: Sourdough

Everyone always talks about how difficult sourdough is. In the past week, I’ve become somewhat obsessed by the subject, and the articles I’ve read have compared it to running a marathon, or winning an Olympic gold medal. And guys, I’m not going to lie: this really was a very difficult assignment.

For me, it was difficult for two reasons. First, I am a slightly germaphobic individual, especially when it comes to food prep (sometimes I wonder if my entire tenure in the foodservice sector was just a reasonable excuse for compulsive hand washing). Making a sourdough starter from scratch requires not only making peace with the bacteria and yeast literally floating around your kitchen, but actually coaxing it to work with you.

And this brings us to the second reason this was difficult for me: due to my slightly type A, efficiency-driven nature (which six years of self employment have only made more fine-tuned), I like to have control over processes and time. As I have learned, sourdough follows its own rhythm and has its own agenda. Unlike that well-behaved commercial yeast sold in jars, it owes you nothing- you have to wait for it to help you out.

Knowing that making a sourdough starter from scratch is a five day process, I started last weekend. I keep saying that it’s like a science project, but guys, it’s more like magic. You just put some flour and water in a jar, keep it open, and leave it out on the counter. Every day you feed it, and the craziest thing happens- it becomes a living thing! I named my starter Tony.

After the five days were up, I took Tony for a spin with a training-wheels type recipe, which was a great way to warm up. After that, I felt that I was ready to take on the real deal: the (said in a whisper) Tartine formula. I used two helpful tutorials to get through the three day process- both this one and this one were fantastic references.

The first step was the most difficult- just scooping some starter into a bowl, feeding it with some flour and water, and waiting for it to get active enough to leaven bread. Since Tony is such a young little starter, this took much longer than I expected, and resulted in hours of fretting. During the time I waited for the magic to happen, I painted this tiny, worried self portrait:

Finally, the leaven passed the test- a blob of it floated in water- and I did an elaborate victory dance. The rest of the process went pretty much according to plan- aside from the maddening moments when the dough stuck to the tea towels lining the proofing bowls. I’ll admit there was a lot of cursing in those moments. But, then in the end, there was bread.

And you know what, it’s pretty damn good. Crusty, slightly tangy, and completely leavened with wild yeast. I think I’m definitely hooked on sourdough- this stuff is crazy and cool and I look forward to getting more comfortable with it.