nsfwords | Cooking Adventures - The Basic Round Loaf

In late 2023 I was gifted a sourdough starter. The 1:1:1 flour and water kind, which I've never worked with before, and the beginning of a new series of culinary adventures.

Some background on me: I'm a good cook. I put myself through college as a short order cook (with the help of massive student debt) and was very fast and accurate on the line. I loved coming up with the Daily Special, no matter which restaurant I worked at, and learned so much at all the various eateries that hired me. I took away a few recipes, a rabid dedication to Rotation of Stock, and a loathing for cooking in commercial kitchens. It is soul crushing. But! I believe it made me a better home cook, and made me truly appreciate the everyday joy of cooking for people who enjoy my food.

What do I like to cook? Comfort Foods. My cooking is not the healthiest. There's too many carbs and meats. But I've had Framily describe it as "soul warming."

What has been my culinary White Whale? I can bake, cook, BBQ, can jams and jellies, and use a slow cooker with ease. But bread. Bread is a beast! Quick breads - fine, no problem, because they're cakes that are lying to you about their healthiness. But yeasted breads? Not so much. In my early 20's my birth-giver had an Amish Friendship Bread starter (the kind that is fed sugar and potato flakes) and experimented a little bit with Sourdough. It was ok. But I want to learn to make Great Bread.

Experiment #1 The Basic Round Loaf. I wanted to start my sourdough adventures with a basic round loaf cooked in my Dutch Oven. So I fed my starter, waited for bubbling, and followed a basic online recipe. Results? Failure. I rarely fail at cooking, except bread, so this was a not-entirely-unexpected and amusing surprise. Here's the sad pancake that occurred, and was entirely inedible:

No rise to be seen. What happened Yeastie Beasties?

Oof! That's a dense little brick of flour.

Experiment #2 The Basic Round Loaf Redux. So I waited a week, and tried again. I work a 40 hour day job, so the weekends are when I get cookin'. I researched, read more recipes, and was pretty sure I had it figured out. "Bubbling" doesn't mean 10 or 20 small air bubbles in the starter. It literally means bubbling like an ancient alchemic concoction on my counter, threatening to spill over the sides of its containment vessel, and ready to lift some dough! So I fed my starter twice, chose a new recipe with some olive oil in it for added yumminess, and tried again. And I did it. I made tangy, fluffy, golden sourdough! It felt like being 30 ft. tall and invincible. I smiled for hours. Then we ate it. :-)

It had Height!

It had great golden color!

It had a nice crust and good crumb.

Final Thoughts: I've never been more proud in the kitchen. Later that afternoon I sliced the loaf into many slices, slathered them with a garlic herb compound butter, and served it as a garlic bread at my Framily's annual Yule Party. I was so pleased to feed this to my Framily, and they made happy appreciative bread noises as they used it to scoop up lasagna.

Hope readers enjoy if I keep sharing my cooking adventures.