All About Sour Dough .

[ElleG]

Chookie, I made your basic Sour dough bread today and tweaked it. Very happy with the fruit loaf that resulted
 
I love the recipe, added cinnamon, half a grated nutmeg, 1 tabs rice malt syrup and about 220g dried fruit (sultanas, ginger and dates) and almonds and pistachios. I soaked the fruit and nuts for 10 mins in boiling water, drained well and added in the last minute of kneading. I have tried other sour dough fruit loaves, will stay with your basic recipe and add whatever I have in the cupboard, so much nicer.

[achookwoman]

Ellie,  love what you added.  Glad you enjoyed the SD.

[troupie]

I have just made a sourdough cake; too hot to cut yet but I am hoping it will be great. Will post if it turns out. Thanks again Chookie for all the help with sourdough and all the other recipes you share with us.

[achookwoman]

Troupie,  very interested to hear how the cake turns out.  I am feeding up a second jar of starter to make SD crumpets. 

[troupie]

The cake turned out great Chookie; lovely with a bit of butter spread on it. I will make it once more and then post just to make sure I get times and speeds correct as it was not a TMX recipe. Just another way to use sourdough and more goodies to try of course. To me it was also comfort food as I love a bit of buttered cake with a cuppa.

[achookwoman]

Troupie,  sounds delicious. 

[cookie1]

I can hardly wait for the recipe troupie.

[Jamberie]

It's finally time to have a go at sourdough!  I have just read every post in this thread with great interest! And thank you to everyone for posting, it has all added to my learning!
I'd love to start a starter, and am interested in your thoughts on suitable temperatures.... Over the next week, we are expecting temps of 0-18, 3-17, 3-20, 4-26 (daily variance of approx 20oC). Would it be OK to:
a)  leave the starter outside overnight
b) bring it inside overnight
c) try in summer?
Any help greatly appreciated!

[cookie1]

I'm sure Chookie will come to the rescue. I have never started starter from the start.

[gertbysea]

Interesting Jamberie. I left my starter outside for about 4 days then brought it inside. The temp varied from about 26 to about 10.

Anyway you got nothing to lose but some flour and water.

Gert

[Jamberie]

Anyway you got nothing to lose but some flour and water.

Gert

So true Gert! With that advice, I might try two versions....one brought inside and the other kept outside

[achookwoman]

With temps like yours,  I would bring it in at night.  Might take a bit longer but don't chuck it out unless it smells off. 
If all else fails I can post you some. But it is nice to have your own home grown starter.
Let us know how you go.

[Jamberie]

Thanks Chookie. I'll bring it inside when it's colder....fingers crossed!

[ElsieD]

Yesterday I finished reading this entire thread.  I was trying to make a starter and was not impressed with my efforts but thanks to people on this forum I persevered.  I kept wanting to toss it and start again when I would read a post that said "Don't do it!  Feed it and leave it alone".  And so I took that to heart and applied it to my starter as well.  Here we are now on day eight, and tonight it has FINALLY come alive!  I swear I could stand next to my kitchen counter and watch it grow in real time.  I am beyond excited.  So thank you, everyone.

So tomorrow or the next day I hope to make some bread.  I will base it on the original recipe on this thread.  But what I would like to do is make buns.  I have 2 bun pans so can make 12 buns at a time. Can someone tell me how long and at what temperature would I bake them?  I'm guessing I would bake at 200C for maybe 15 minutes?  I know that the information is in this thread as I saw it but I would rather not have to go through 71 pages again.   Thank you for your help.  This is a wonderful forum.

[judydawn]

Hopefully someone will have the answer for you Elsie, I've not made sourdough buns before.