BAKING AGAIN

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, when I was young and newly wedded and living and teaching in a town far, far from here, someone, and I am so sorry that I do not remember who, gave me a sourdough starter ... and a recipe for sourdough biscuit. Oh my, the result of that was several years of baking what I remember as soft, fluffy hot rolls that smelled so very good when baking.

Because the process of using a starter is more time consuming than complicated, I baked them more often at some time in the middle of the night than any time during the day. That meant they were frequently a breakfast treat; but just as often, they went to school with me and someone other than just family ate them. I can remember taking them to my first period senior English class or sharing them with other teachers who had come to school without breakfast or anything else. (I don't remember who was more hungry, students or teachers.)

Other times, I baked sourdough breads in the middle of the night and I can remember the smell of baking bread in the dark and the sound of the alarm so that I didn't burn the bread. Who else would bake in the middle of the night? But I did. That was the time when it was easy, it was convenient, and there was plenty of time to get it done. Just remembering the smell of that baked bread makes me hungry even tonight.

And for that reason alone, when I saw sourdough starter for sale in the King Arthur baking catalog, I couldn't ignore it. I bought it. Now, I had never taken a dry starter and gone through the process of turning it into the bubbling, sour concoction with which one bakes bread. I certainly didn't know what I was getting myself into when I started one Saturday afternoon before Christmas or possibly I would have waited a month or so. But I read and followed the directions, adding a half cup water here and a cup of flour there for several steps until I had a sourdough starter crock filled with something very close to flour and water paste ... except this paste had a most distinctive odor.

I don't remember just how long that took, but it was mix and let it sit for four hours and then add flour and water and let it sit for another four hours; and add more water and flour and wait for twelve hours; and then do it all again. Oh, perhaps, it wasn't that much; but it was several repetitions of the same several steps several times! And finally, I had that bubbling starter I so remembered.

Now, to make bread. I had several recipes and not one was the one I had used so many years ago; and I really wanted that same wonderful bread I remembered with such fondness. The first batch of sourdough rolls (as the recipe called them) was not bad for biscuit. Fresh from the oven they were delicious. Thirty minutes later, they needed help. They were neither soft nor fluffy. Some I split and called toasted biscuit; some I shared with my unsuspecting neighbor; some, the last dozen or so, were so hard, I tossed.

Back to the Internet and more recipes; but there was no way to determine which would be the ones I wanted. Should I try one with added yeast or not? one with milk or one with water? Finally, I chose a recipe that, although not what I remembered, sounded as if it might be very good for it contained beaten egg and melted butter, the starter, flour, salt, and a little yeast. The dough was soft and yielding; it felt good in my hands, ready to be bread. The recipe said it would make 24 rolls, but there was nothing near that much dough there. I patted it out, too thin it turned out, and cut the rolls quickly with a biscuit cutter, not the usual way to make rolls, but ...

When they came out of the oven, they did smell wonderful; and with butter, they tasted terrific. But they weren't as soft and fluffy as I remembered. What did they need? I should have patted the dough out into a much thicker round; and I should have made the rolls much thicker to begin. 24? I made a dozen and they needed to be much thicker and not so big around. And now, six hours later, they are flat biscuit with nothing fluffy about them.

I shall try that one again, never fear. But when I hunger for soft, fluffy dinner rolls, I have a wonderful recipe for that. It just isn't made with sourdough and that disappoints me. I remember those rolls from the sixties and how wonderful they were. I'll try one or two more times before I give up and go on with the King Arthur Flour Golden Pull Apart Dinner Rolls. Those are delightfully delicious and everything we should not eat. I can be perfectly contented with those. And I suppose that I can use my bubbling starter for paste ... if I had any need for flour paste.