SOURDOUGH SURPRISE
What the Pandemic Hath Wrought
by Susan Barron
I am a frustrated bread baker. I typically bake our scrumptious breakfast bread (whole wheat raisin nut bread) at least once a week. Why am I frustrated? Thanks to Covid, my supply of yeast is dangerously low!
Grandchildren to the rescue! We are blessed with ten of them, ranging in age from 5 to 25. Happily, all have come to roost in their parents’ homes, waiting out the pandemic – the older ones gainfully employed via Zoom. The older grandchildren have been afflicted with the “THE PANDAMIC SOURDOUGH CRAZE” eagerly mastering this ancient art!
My 23-year old grandson Campbell has urged me to follow his lead and dive into this pursuit.
Obstacle #1: Campbell stressed that as a prerequisite I must purchase a digital scale. Amazon Prime to the rescue: Woops, back-ordered 10 days!
Obstacle #2: flour scarcity, second only to that of toilet paper. Thankfully, my youngest daughter, also a Sourdough convert, had been able to purchase a 25-pound bag of flour at Costco. She insisted upon sharing it with me, in addition to providing me with my initial supply of the essential sourdough starter.
Now began the anxiety-ridden wait for my scale to arrive. To fill the time and assuage my anxiety, I once again heeded Campbell’s advice and watched what actually is a delightful YouTube How to Make Sourdough Masterclass, taught by a spirited Irish baker. (If you’re in the mood for a chuckle, you might watch it just for fun!)
Given that I was dealing with Amazon Prime, the scale arrived PRECISELY on the appointed day AND PRECISELY at the appointed time! By then I had watched the young, fearless, spirited Sourdough Irish baker plying his trade at least 15 times as a prerequisite to “chancing it.”
The time had come. Ingredients assembled, I was ready to begin! My husband Bob insisted on standing over my shoulder to witness this miracle. New scale at the ready, we CAREFULLY, and I mean CAREFULLY measured the requisite four ingredients: sourdough starter, flour, water, salt. As directed, we mixed the ingredients, turned them out on the floured counter and began the process of kneading this mound into what, hopefully, would turn into a usable dough. The Irish baker warned us that the dough would seem “a little bit wet and a little bit sticky.” Not to worry. He cautioned, however, that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES were we to add a speck more flour. Just continue kneading. He suggested further: “Just think of someone ya don’t like and GO FOR IT!”
“Go for it” we did, and did and did. Finally I said to Bob, I know about bread dough, this dough is too wet!
Intimidated by our Irish bread baker, yet reluctant to throw away the entire gloppy mess, we continued to follow the baker’s instructions — though dubiously -- plopped the gloppy mess into a linen towel-lined bowl to be to be left out on the counter overnight.
Less than five minutes after the deed was done, I happened to glance at our new scale. HORROR OF HORRORS! The scale had been factory set not on grams, as stipulated by the Irish baker, but on milliliters, thereby explaining our gloppy mess!
A note of explanation: because grams measure MASS and milliliters measure VOLUME, the two are NOT directly interchangeable!
What to do? Leave it overnight as directed and pray for a miracle!
The next morning, you’ll never guess what happened. The mess was still GLOPPY! Now what to do? In desperation, we dumped it into the requisite cast iron pot, baked it in the oven and yet again hoped for a miracle. The resulting “bread,” if you could call it that, looked remarkably like a FRISBEE!
The good news is that at dinner that night, with our delicious cold summer soup and salad, we each applied butter to our allotment of FRISBEE, and it tasted delicious!
In closing, subsequent attempts at sourdough have proved the wisdom of the old adage, “Live and Learn!”