My Top 5 Sourdough Cookie Recipes by Make It Dough (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to sourdough? ›

6. Just add water for softer sourdough. The secret to sourdough is simple: water. The more water you add to your dough will affect how open the crumb (bigger holes and softer texture) will be once it's baked.

Over the years, I've found keeping the mixture warm at around 80°F (26°C), and high hydration (100% water to flour in baker's percentages) helps get things started. In addition, while not mandatory, using certain flour also helps increase the chances a starter will take hold quickly (see below).

If you have too much starter compared to the additional flour and water you're adding, your hungry starter consumes all the nutrients and then it's not as bubbly.

Bake. Bake the bread until it's crusty and golden, about 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the loaves from the oven and cool on a rack before slicing. This opens in a new window.

The key taste compounds include salt, which is directly added to the dough, as well as acetic and lactic acid, produced during fermentation. After these experiments, they applied a technique called “unified flavor quantitation,” which was previously developed by Hofmann's team, to the sourdough bread.

Nearly all sourdough bread is vegan-friendly. Some non-vegan ingredients, including dairy, honey, and eggs, can appear in sourdough, but those are outstanding exceptions to the rule.

While the age of your starter won't make your bread any better — turns out, only good sourdough practices can do that — it's a link in the long legacy of sourdough, one of the oldest forms of baking that exists. Whether your starter is a week or a decade old, you can become part of that lineage as well.

It would be best if you discarded some portion of your starter each time you feed it unless you want to continue to let it grow. Eventually, you need to discard the used “food” (flour and water) that's been used to sustain your starter during the last fermentation period.

Due to its wide availability and affordability, all-purpose flour is often my top recommendation for creating and maintaining a sourdough starter. In fact, I've been feeding my own sourdough starter Central Milling's all-purpose flour for the past 4 years.

Scoop out 30g of that starter into a fresh, clean jar, add 30g of flour and 30g of water. Stir it up and keep it warm. Your starter will likely recover in a day or two. Do not discard and refeed until the starter is completely covered with bubbles on top.

Why discard half of sourdough starter? ›

If you don't get rid of the excess, eventually you'll have more starter than your feedings can sustain. After a few days, your daily 1/4 cup flour and water won't be enough to sustain your entire jar of starter, and your starter will be slow and sluggish, not much better than discard itself.

Things that Will Kill A Sourdough Starter

High Temperatures - preheating your oven with your sourdough starter inside can lead to your starter's demise - but it would have to be completely baked for it to be completely unresponsive to some TLC.

The mixture sits overnight to develop flavor. The next day, more flour, water, and salt are added to create a wet dough. After folding and rising, the bread is baked in a hot Dutch oven to give the artisan-style crust. This bread is worth the time and will become a staple.

If you do not have a baking stone, a cookie sheet will also do the trick. I use this method for my sourdough bread bowls and sourdough mini loaves.

The outer crust of your sourdough bread should be crispy, crackly, and have a glossy, caramelized brown finish. The key to achieving a healthy crust is getting sufficient steam while baking, as it keeps the outer crust moist while the inside cooks.

There are two main acids produced in a sourdough culture: lactic acid and acetic acid. Acetic acid, or vinegar, is the acid that gives sourdough much of its tang. Giving acetic acid-producing organisms optimal conditions to thrive and multiply will produce a more tangy finished product.

Sourdough bread's signature taste comes from friendly bacteria and yeast, which produce flavorful lactic and acetic acids in rising bread dough.