Sourdough Bread

Ok, so one of the things I vowed to do over the last year, and for the most part have successfully done, is make bread for my family almost daily. Pretty easy - most often I just toss the ingredients in the bread machine, and a few hours later a loaf of bread magically appears! Gotta love technology (especially the lower electricity used in making the bread in THAT device, as opposed to my big oven).

I also have experimented with making my own hamburger buns, english muffins, bagels and more, and yes, I've gotten fantastic results, and it was not too difficult! Remember, I'm of the generation where I somehow grew up thinking that if it didn't come in a bag at the grocery store, you couldn't make it at home. Weird, as my mother canned, made homemade bread and more!

So, while lots of beautiful, yummy loaves have magically appeared from my oven and bread machine, at quite a reduced cost from the grocery store model, there is one bread which seems to elude me - Sourdough. I mean, I have a starter in my fridge, I faithfully refresh it every few days, and it even SMELLS like sourdough. But alas, it resembles something more like a hockey puck, and depending on what I've done to damage it, it doesn't even always taste like bread, let alone sourdough. :/

The first loaf smelled SO yummy, and even tasted yummy, as long as you could get past the fact that it was also gummy, and had NO gas inside whatsoever. Like a big lump of tasty clay. Well, it was my first.

My second and third batch didn't rise when it should have, so in desperation I added yeast (bye bye sour dough flavour), and then I got gassy (air pockets galore) flat clay hockey pucks.

I'll keep you posted on my 'sourdough saga', and hope you cross your fingers for me!