so easy a caveman could do it

My day needs to start with some fuel in the form of starch, protein, and coffee. My husband knows to stay out of my way until I have had breakfast, or at least my first cup of coffee. I have even witnessed him trying to sneak a bowl of cereal but fleeing the kitchen when the coffeepot beeped to avoid being in between me and my morning coffee.

My starch and protein of choice has been eggs and toast for quite a while now. The whole wheat bread I’ve been making weekly has been my toast of choice, but after my first success using a sourdough starter, I thought I would try something new.

I checked Wild Yeast and the Fresh Loaf, but every starter-based recipe that sounded good called for rye or buckwheat flour that I don’t have. How hard could it be to find a straightforward sourdough starter bread recipe?

Then I decided not to care. Back in the dark ages before teh internetz — heck, even before then! — people made bread with starters all the time. They didn’t have digital scales or proofing ovens or commercial yeast in the fridge, they had a starter, flour, water, and salt. If they could make bread, so could I.

And I did.

Is it the best bread ever? Nope. I mixed some starter and a touch of salt with more flour and water until it seemed like a good consistency for a hydrated dough. I folded it several times then let it proof on a pizza peel. I scored it (poorly, it seems) and put it in a hot oven with a steam pan and baked it until it sounded done. How much flour and water I used, I don’t know.

The crust is crisp, the crumb is tender and a little chewy. It made a nice sandwich for lunch, and it’s made good toast with my breakfast for the last few days, too.

Morning coffee? Check.

Love the Straus Creamery packaging.

Instead of recycling their stylish glass bottles you return them to the store where the creamery picks them up so they can be sterilized and re-used.

Did I mention how cute they are?

Mmm, breakfast. Delicious, even without a recipe.

Tagged as: bread, sourdough