Sweet Sourdough

The Joy of Having a Mother (Dough)

One of the great treats of my childhood was visiting Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. We would purchase little paper cones of shrimp cocktail from vendors at one of the many crab shacks and devour them while staring out at Alcatraz Island, a federal prison in those days. Then we would have a rare dinner out at Alioto’s, the famous Italian restaurant known for its wonderful Sicilian-style seafood.

What I remember most about that honky-tonk area by the bay was the delicious sourdough bread served warm in a bread basket with a little crock of butter. It wasn’t just sourdough—it was San Francisco sourdough—and to this day when I visit the wharf, I have to stop at Boudin Bakery Cafe to watch the bakers shaping that puffy white dough into baguettes, boules, baby turtles, crocodiles and whatever else their imagination suggests. On Boudin’s website we learn that the bakery still makes its sourdough bread “using the same mother dough cultivated from a gold miner’s sourdough starter.” That would make the original dough 171 years old!

Boudin sourdough breads include an array of critters.

I’ve got a sourdough “mother” stored in the back of my fridge. It doesn’t date back to the Gold Rush era—it’s only about 10 years old or so. It’s somewhat temperamental and occasionally when I neglect it for too long, it gets a bit sour and smells like pickle brine, but, like most mothers, it’s pretty forgiving. I throw out some of it, stir and pamper the rest, and feed it carefully with flour and water and, voila—it grows into a powerhouse again, puffy and proud, full of vitality, just the way you’d want your mother to be! I’ve used this starter to make all kinds of breads—a classic sourdough, a corn rye, a whole wheat cinnamon raisin bread, crumpets, English muffins, even pizza, pretzels, and bagels.

A somewhat neglected mother starter without a name.

The starter gives the dough a special sour flavor, makes it rise (even without added commercial yeast), and also helps it keep a little longer without the benefit of preservatives. Some even claim that the natural fermentation process may make the gluten more digestible, though probably not for gluten-intolerant celiacs. I make no such claims for my sourdough—I just love making bread from a few simple ingredients—flour, water and salt—and knowing that I’m participating in an artisan craft that’s thousands of years old—as is bread-making itself.

Right now sourdough seems to be having a moment. Just a few months ago, I’d post pictures of my fresh-baked loaves and friends would say, “Wow! That’s looks delicious! Wish I could make bread, but it looks hard, and I don’t have the time.”

Raisin-Walnut Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

Now many people are stuck at home looking for diversion. Watching a bowl of starter bubbling by the stove and dreaming of the beautiful loaf of bread you could make with it is a far more hopeful idea than wondering if that coughing fit you just had is the first sign of COVID-19!

This week I decided to make a new starter. I couldn’t remember if I started my first batch with a pinch of commercial yeast. Could I do it this time with just flour and water? Would wild yeast from ambient air in my kitchen be enough to create a powerful mother dough? How long would it take?

As usual, my go-to resource, was a King Arthur post on how to make sourdough. It claimed it would take a total of one hour prep time and 5 days of waiting. With nothing but time on my hands, I was game.

I started on a Monday mixing a scant one cup of pumpernickel flour and a half cup of room temperature filtered water. For accuracy, I used my handy scale. The volume measurements work out to be about 113 grams each of flour and water.

The King Arthur recipe suggests using pumpernickel or whole wheat to begin with.

Twenty-four hours later, the mixture didn’t show much action. It just looked like the the pasty tan mixture I’d started with. But that was only Day 1. I followed the directions and discarded half the mixture, added 113 grams each of flour and water, and stirred. This time I used unbleached all-purpose flour. This process of throwing away part of the mix and adding more flour and water continued until Friday. (Of course, in this age of scarcity, when flour is as rare as gold dust, I didn’t really throw out anything—I saved the discard to use in other recipes. (For ideas, I also suggest this King Arthur site.)

Starter: Day 5

The mixture went from absolutely no perceptible yeast activity to a happily bubbling cauldron of energy in five days. Sometimes, say the King Arthur folks, it can take even longer, and small variables—like room and water temperature—really do make a difference.

After 5 days and 7 feedings, Flora is ready for action!

The more attention you give your mother dough—that is, using your starter to bake with instead of neglecting her for weeks at a time—the happier and healthier she’ll be! But if you do forget about her for a bit, just a few days of care and feeding will bring her back to life. Moms—and mother doughs—are dependable that way.

My real mother, Flora Gordon Stroud, a Glasgow lass.

It’s a bit hokey—I don’t usually name my starters—but I decided to name this one after my own late mother, Flora. I don’t think she’d mind. After all, she’s the one who inspired me to bake in the first place.

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