Sourdough Donuts

This recipe was written at the end of May. And somehow it's already July. What in the world?! A lot of traveling in between then and now. I'll spare you the details, mainly because it was mostly a blur in my pregnant memory, and I didn't take many pictures.

The reason for this recipe came about when we butchered our pig and made lard in early May. I will spare you the details... for now.

Since I had a lot of beautiful lard, my husband suggested making donuts. Doughnuts. However you spell it. At any rate, I have never made donuts before. And of course, I chose to make sourdough donuts. Because, as I’ve mentioned before, I am a bit obsessed with sourdough. I finally chose a recipe out of one of my old faves, The Presidential Cookbook, published in 1895. Now, this cookbook is very interesting, because it assumes that you know a lot more than today’s day-and-age cook knows. (In fact, I think in the future I’d like to share a few recipes, because they’re just a hoot!) But onto the recipe!

Here is the exact wording from the cookbook, followed by my interpretation!

Raised Doughnuts

from The Presidential Cookbook

Old-fashioned “raised doughnuts,” are seldom seen, now-a-days, but are easily made. Make a sponge as for bread, using a pint of warm water or milk, and a large half cupful of yeast; when the sponge is very light, add half a cupful of butter or sweet lard, a coffee-cupful of sugar, a teaspoonful of salt and one small teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in a little water, one tablespoonful of cinnamon, a little grated nutmeg; stir in now two well-beaten eggs, add sifted flour until it is the consistency of biscuit-dough, knead it well, cover and let rise; then roll the dough out into a sheet half an inch thick, cut out with a very small biscuit-butter, or in strips half an inch wide and three inches long, place them on greased tins, cover them well, and let them rise before frying them. Drop them in very hot lard. Raised cakes required longer time than cakes made with baking-powder. Sift powdered sugar over them as fast as they are fried, while warm. Our grandmothers put allspice into these cakes; that, however, is a matter of taste.

Sourdough Donuts (my version)

Makes about 3 dozen.

2 c. warm water (or milk, sour milk, whatever you have)

½ c. sourdough starter (mine wasn’t proofed, so don’t worry if you pull it cold out of fridge)

4 c. freshly ground flour (I used half red wheat berries, and half soft white wheat berries)

Mix together in the evening and let sit overnight.

In the morning, add…

½ c. melted lard (not too hot. I used lard because I had some readily available)

¾ c. sugar (I used raw sugar because that’s what I use instead of white)

1 t. salt

¾ t. soda, dissolved in a little water

1 T. cinnamon

dash of nutmeg

2 beaten eggs

Add flour (I didn’t sift, but maybe that would be better. I just didn’t have the patience for sifting) until the consistency is right. I ended up adding 2 c. ground whole wheat flour, and 1 ½ c. unbleached white flour in order to get the right consistency. You should be able to knead it and not have it be sticky.  I maybe kneaded it for a few minutes. Then covered it to sit. Now, I wasn’t sure how long to let it rise, but it rose for 4-5 hours because that's how my day worked out.

After lunch I formed the donuts by rolling out the dough (use more white flour) to about ½ inch thick and used a small canning jar ring to cut circles. Then I used my finger to poke a hole in the middle. Then I floured some pans and laid my donuts to rest. Again, being unsure how long to let them rise, they maybe rose for an hour or so. They didn’t look like they had risen much, so I was resigned to flat donuts.

I got my oil heated up. I used my candy thermometer and kept the temp between 350 and 375 degrees. Boy, did the donuts puff up!! I was so surprised! I did about 4-5 minutes per side, till they were a golden brown. They seem to darken in color after you get them out of the oil.

I left them plain, and just sprinkled powdered sugar over them as we ate them. Otherwise they would’ve just soaked up the powdered sugar. It took us about a week to eat them up. And they were pretty tasty. I will say they are a little dense, but I think most donuts just ARE dense, although it’s been years since I’ve had a store-bought donut.

And I have to tell you… the days I had those donuts, I had an amazing amount of energy! I worked through the afternoon without a nap and was still going until bedtime! For this mama who is always tired, that’s saying something. I am pretty sure it’s the lard. It sticks with you and satiates. And makes you forget to have a snack. Pregnant mamas need to snack. So I should just have a half a donut, maybe… ;-)

Before raise time

After raise time... not much difference

My helpers. They got to form their own donut.

Plumping up in the hot lard. I love my ceramic cast iron pot!

Finished product. Not picture perfect, but really... who cares?!

Freshly ground flour... sifting is your friend!

Instead of taking a nap on this fine Sunday afternoon, I'm writing a blog post. The reason for the writing itch is what I've had on my mind for a while: freshly ground flour.

I got a new grain mill last year, and have been enjoying freshly ground flour in all manner of baked goods, but it's taken me the longest time to figure out how to make decent, real sourdough bread with it. (When I say "real", I mean leavened using only sourdough, no commercial baking yeast.)

Why sourdough bread? I have a peculiar fascination with sourdough. (Read: I am obsessed.) There’s something empowering about not relying upon something I’ve purchased to raise my bread, but rather using yeast that I’ve cultivated from the air. I found this quote about sourdough and liked how it was worded:

Commercial "baking" yeast is a single kind of organism that belches a lot of gas really fast and transforms grain into something that's even less good for you. Sourdough is two organisms, wild yeast and bacteria, in symbiosis. Together they transform the grain to make it more healthful, more digestible, and also resistant to getting moldy or stale.

Okay, so do you get that sourdough is better for you? That's kind of why I'm a bit extreme when it comes to this bread baking. PLUS, I've noticed that when I eat unsoaked flour products, my nursing baby is more fussy.

So, back to my quest for the perfect loaf of sourdough bread. I'd made some sourdough doorstops the first several times I used freshly ground flour. Then I used the Urban Homemaker's 2-step soaked recipe, which worked pretty well... I had gotten a free e-book from her at some point, which contained the recipe. But not all the flour was soaked. (Remember... I'm obsessed!) Then I got a free e-book from Kitchen Stewardship which contained a recipe for Honey Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread which I liked. Still not perfect, but it was turning out better than my other sourdough version, plus, all the flour was getting a pretty good souring time.

But here's the deal...the grain mill doesn't grind the grain to a complete powder. There is fine powdery flour mixed with the crushed bran. The bran acts almost like little scissors on the gluten strands, which keeps the bread from having a bigger rise. I think that's what I've been fighting against, and have only recently had a lightbulb moment in thinking to SIFT the flour. Not sure how I came to that, but I saw this blog post about sifting out the bran, then adding it back into the bread, which some say really helped their final loaf. Somewhere else, I read to soak the bran in some type of fat, like lard or butter, before adding it back in.

Yeah... sift it. But how?

Well, I have this flour sifter that I got several years back that hasn't gotten much use. I've read that you should use these screens made especially for flour sifting... but I have this flour sifter. Soooo.... I figured I'd try it and see. Here's what the inside of my sifter looks like.

There's a handle on the side that you squeeze and it moves two wheels to sift around the flour... I mostly just end up shaking it to get the flour out. But it keeps the bigger bran pieces out, which I do one of two things with: 1. Bran goes into a recipe, like bars or cookies (or cookies that become bars because I can't seem to make cookies that don't become a flat pancake!). OR 2. Bran goes into coffee grinder, gets ground a bit finer, and gets thrown back into my pot of flour. (I wouldn't add it back into my flour grinder, because I think that's bad for the machine.)

So, it seemed to help lighten the loaf a bit, and helped it rise higher!

But, I haven't perfected this concept yet. A few notes...

--I tried soaking the bran in some soft lard and adding it back into the bread. I counted it as some of my flour, but I don't think I should've done that, because it didn't help the bread at all. Made it pretty dense.

--I have left out the bran before, which works very well.

--When grinding up the bran in the coffee grinder, it seems to work pretty well to add it back into the flour.

--I have a tendency to forget about my bread rising.... at least with sourdough, it's not quite as big of a deal as with commercial yeast, which rises a lot faster. But the last several times I've made bread, it rose longer than it needed to, so the loaves ended up falling a bit during baking.

--I need to coddle my sourdough starter a bit more before baking bread so it's at its peak performance when it gets used for bread. I'm going to try to keep my sourdough starter out on my counter a lot more so it's always ready. I found these two recipes, which call for a certain amount of sourdough starter, but no extra flour, so as long as I have plenty of sourdough starter ready, I don't have to think ahead to make these things: Sourdough Crepes (the link is to tortilla chips, but the crepe recipe is on there) and Sourdough Pancakes.

So, my sourdough bread is still a work-in-progress. I realize it will never be like the bread you buy in stores... but I'm okay with that. I don't want it to be! ;-)

Homemade Whole Wheat Pitas

I'm really excited to post about this, because I strayed from the directions a bit, and it totally rocked. I didn't want to stop eating these pitas.

These pitas are very similar to the pizza post I made last week, and based on my pita discovery, I'll probably be changing my pizza dough recipe to be more like my pitas.

Here's why I'm so excited: I made the pitas entirely with soaked dough and sourdough. That's right, no commercial yeast involved, just my wild yeast culture, which I like to refer to as my "Mankato Culture"--since I made it while living in Mankato! I basically followed the same recipe, but left out the commercial yeast, and it turned out great!

The process is much the same as the pizza dough. There are three parts: the soaker, the sourdough starter, and the final dough. And the amounts are slightly different, but the ingredients are the same.

For ease of use, I'll re-list all my instructions for the soaker and sourdough starter again. This is my adaptation of the pita recipe in "Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads".

Homemade Whole Wheat Pitas

Makes 6-8 pita rounds, depending on how big you want them

Three parts: Soaker, Sourdough, Final Dough

Part One: Soaker

1. Make the Soaker 12-24 hours before you want to use it. Mix the following ingredients in a bowl for about one minute, until the flour is hydrated and the ingredients form a ball:

• 1 3/4 c. whole wheat flour, preferably fine grind
• 3/4 c. kefir (or a mixture of water and lemon juice, whey, or yogurt... be creative. I used kefir because that's what I had)

2. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature 12-24 hours. If want to have it ready by the next afternoon, I'll usually mix it up in the early evening.

Part Two: Sourdough Starter

• 5 T. wild yeast starter (aka sourdough)
• 1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
• 1/2 c. + 2 T. water

1. Mix these ingredients to form a ball of dough. Using wet hands, knead dough for about two minutes in the bowl. The dough should feel very tacky. Let dough rest five minutes, then knead again with wet hands for one minute. The dough will be smoother, but still tacky.
2. Place starter dough in oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap, leaving at room temp. for 4-8 hours, until doubled in size. When I made these pitas, I mixed up both the soaker and sourdough starter in the evening, set them on the counter, and let them go overnight.
3. When the starter has developed (about doubled in size), knead it for a few seconds to degas it. I use it immediately, but you could refrigerate it at this point to use at a later date, within 3-4 days. If you do put in fridge, make sure you take it out two hours before you use it to take off the chill.

Part Three: Final Dough

1. Since I wanted these for lunch, I started mixing the final dough around 8:30 or 9 a.m. Cut the sourdough and soaker together. In the book, it says to cut it up into 12 pieces, sprinkle with flour so they don't stick together, and mix together. What I do is stack them on top of each other and cut with a kitchen scissors, and then sprinkle these ingredients on top:

• 3/4 c. + 2 T. whole wheat flour (I used sprouted flour)
• 1 1/8 t. sea salt
• 1 T. coconut oil, melted

2. Knead these all together for about 2 minutes, until all ingredients are mixed evenly. Dough sould be soft and slightly sticky, if not add more flour/water.
2. Knead for an additional 1 minute, so dough feels supple but tacky. Form into ball and let rest on counter for 5 minutes. In the mean time, prepare an oiled bowl
3. Knead for another minute to strengthen the gluten, then place in bowl loosely covered with plastic wrap, and let rise 45-60 minutes.
4. Transfer to lightly floured surface and divide into 6-8 balls. Place on pan covered with parchment paper to rise another 45-60 minutes, or until 1 1/2 times their original size.
5. In the meantime, you should have your baking stone preheating in the oven for an hour before you actually want to bake your pitas. Heat the oven as high as it can go (mine is 500 degrees).

6. Roll out ea. ball into a flat disk 4-5 in. in diameter. Dust disks with flour and return to pan, stacking if necessary. Cover with cloth towel or plastic wrap and let rest for 5 minutes.

7. Go back to your disks, and starting from the center, roll out to the edges until they're about 1/4 inch thick. (The book says not to roll them any thinner... but I think I may be so bold as to roll them thinner next time. Although I did enjoy the full thickness of the resulting pita.) Dust disks with flour again and move to flat surface to rest, covered and undisturbed for 15 minutes.

8. Transfer pitas on to parchment paper, and then transfer on to stone using a flat baking sheet. I did four at a time because that's what would fit on my stone. It should take 2 minutes to begin puffing. After it puffs up, give it 20 seconds to finish baking then transfer to cooling rack. You don't want to let it cook too much longer, otherwise the top will get hard.

And that is how I make pitas. I hope to make some more this week!

The edges are a little jagged... I used a pizza cutter, and it didn't work as well as I'd envisioned...

Awesome pizza crust

I think it's safe to say that most people love pizza. I do! And I have had mixed results with my attempts to make decent homemade pizza dough... usually because I don't quite follow the directions. Heh...

But I had success this time, and I'll tell you what I did. I dusted off the pizza stone we got for our wedding 7 1/2 years ago, and I used a combination of sourdough, soaked dough, and a little bit of commercial yeast. It just required a bit of advance planning, but boy, was it worth it. It also helped to have my parents here, so that, when I smoked up the house heating up the pizza stone, Grandma Linda was able to take Judah outside to play in the snow. I think it got so smoky because I washed off the stone right before I put it in the oven to heat up. Bad idea.

The dough recipe came from "Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads"--thanks to Kristin F. for recommending the book! It took me a while to get going with it, but what I've tried so far has turned out well! There are a few steps involved, but it's really not that time consuming... it's just a lot of waiting, during which time, you can be multi-tasking! It takes about an entire 24 hour period.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

Makes two medium sized pizzas (or they could be large if you stretched out the crust more)

Three parts: Soaker, Sourdough, Final Dough

Part One: Soaker

1. Make the Soaker 12-24 hours before you want to use it. Mix the following ingredients in a bowl for about one minute, until the flour is hydrated and the ingredients form a ball:

• 1 3/4 c. whole wheat flour, preferably fine grind
• 3/4 c. water
• 2 T. whey -- (This is my personal change. It actually calls for 3/4 c. + 2 T. water, but I substitute in the whey to give an acidic medium for help in breaking down the flour to make it more digestible. It also calls for 1/2 t. salt, but I don't add that in until the final mixing since salt inhibits the fermentation process... since fermenting is what I'm actually doing with this soaker. Peter Reinhart makes the soaker for flavor, which is great, but I also look at this soaker to help with breaking down the phytic acid in the flour... in case I haven't mentioned this before, the phytic acid binds with other minerals in the body and doesn't allow the body to absorb them! That's why I'm so anal about soaking things...)

2. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature 12-24 hours. If want to have it ready by the next afternoon, I'll usually mix it up in the early evening.

Part Two: Sourdough Starter

1. Make the sourdough starter dough. In Peter Reinhart's book, he gives you a choice of using either a "biga" (a slowly fermented dough with added commercial yeast) or you can substitute in a wild yeast starter dough, which is what I did.

• 5 T. wild yeast starter (aka sourdough)
• 1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
• 1/2 c. + 2 T. water

Mix these ingredients to form a ball of dough. Using wet hands, knead dough for about two minutes in the bowl. The dough should feel very tacky. Let dough rest five minutes, then knead again with wet hands for one minute. The dough will be smoother, but still tacky.

2. Place starter dough in oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap, leaving at room temp. for 4-8 hours, until doubled in size. What I did was I made this dough in the morning about 8:30 then put the bowl in the oven with the light on. It keeps the oven between 80-85 degrees Farenheit, and helps with the rising, especially in this colder weather.

3. When the starter has developed, knead it for a few seconds to degas it. I use it immediately, but you could refrigerate it at this point to use at a later date, within 3-4 days. If you do put in fridge, make sure you take it out two hours before you use it to take off the chill.

Part Three: Final Dough

1. About 3:00 in the afternoon, I mixed up the final dough. Cut the sourdough and soaker together. In the book, it says to cut it up into 12 pieces, sprinkle with flour so they don't stick together, and mix together. What I do is stack them on top of each other and cut with a kitchen scissors, and then sprinkle these ingredients on top:

• 7 T. whole wheat flour (I used sprouted flour)
• 1 1/8 t. sea salt
• 1 1/2 t. instant yeast
• 2 1/4 t of honey (this is optional, I didn't use it)
• 2 T. olive oil (I used coconut oil)

Knead these all together for about 2 minutes, until all ingredients are mixed evenly. Dough sould be soft and slightly sticky, if not add more flour.

2. Knead for an additional 3-4 minutes so dough is very tacky, verging on sticky. Form into ball and let rest on counter for 5 minutes. In the mean time, I got two pieces of parchment paper ready with some oil spread on them.

3. Knead for another minute to strengthen the gluten, then separate the dough into two balls.

4. Shape the dough. I form it into a disc and let gravity help me out, as I hang onto the edge and just move around the circle as the dough pulls down until it gets to the right size. Lay each circle on your parchment paper, and top with desired toppings.

5. Slide pizza onto the preheated stone (It should have been preheating for an hour at 500 degrees). I used a flat airbake cookie sheet to slide my parchment paper and pizza onto the stone. After 2 minutes check if pizza needs to be rotated for even baking. The pizza should take 5-8 minutes to bake. It's so awesome to see how the crust puffs up! Practice some self restraint--it's hard, I know-- but wait 3-5 minutes before cutting to let the cheese set, and so you won't burn your tastebuds off.

Those are the basic instructions. You may want to check this book out from the library, or buy it to get really specific instructions and lots of great helpful pictures. Also, I am going to try not using instant yeast next time I make this. I just tried baking a loaf of bread with a soaker and a sourdough starter, and mixed the two together without any commercial yeast, and it raised most awesomely, just took a little more time than with commercial yeast. And tasted awesome. So... I'll probably post about that later... too many ideas, so little time!

Sorry my photo skills are lacking, but this gives you an idea what it looked like before we devoured it. The parchment paper got crispy, but it sure made the whole sliding thing easier.

Sourdough bread--Mastering the art...a work in progress

One of my new quests this year has been to try to achieve success at making sourdough bread. It's been a long road of trial and mostly error, and then giving up for a while.

For those of you that think "Bread, what's the big deal? Just add some yeast to some flour and voila!" Not so! In fact, there is no yeast in true sourdough bread.

So what makes it rise? Natural yeasts and lactobacilli (good bacteria) from the sourdough starter. You can buy a starter or you can make your own, which is what I did. I actually made it in 2007, I believe! I made it according to "Nourishing Traditions", where you mix one cup of water to one cup of rye flour in a bowl, and let it sit out in a warm place with a towel covering it. You keep feeding it that same ratio of flour and water every day until you get significant foaming/bubbling action on the surface, and then you know you've caught some wild yeast. Then you're ready to make bread! Well, the first time I tried it I got some dense bricks, which I ate anyway, but wasn't pleased with my attempt. I've tried several times since then with varying degrees of failure. Then I'd freeze the starter for a while until I felt brave enough to try again.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, when I thought I'd try it again. This time, I checked out a book specifically about sourdough bread making called "Classic Sourdoughs: A Home Baker's Handbook" by Ed Wood, which I recommend. But even Ed says that you just have to practice until you get the hang of it.

Here's a picture of my most recent success:

It tastes good and has a texture I like. I could even make sandwiches if I wanted to, the bread holds together that well. Most bread I make just crumbles apart. The good texture is probably due to all the white flour I used, I'm embarassed to admit. But I told myself that if this was going to be a flop, I might as well use up the white flour I had in my pantry. I also justified the white flour saying that the 4-hour leavening time with the sourdough culture would help to break it down to help make it a little more nutritious. There's about a cup and a half of whole wheat and the starter is with rye, so there's a little more healthiness involved, too. So, I want to try making bread that includes less white flour and more wheat. I may possibly try making a new sourdough starter with wheat, instead of rye. We'll see where that goes...

I've also made sourdough pancakes, waffles, and hamburger buns, all of which I've been quite pleased with. It's very fun to see how much the dough ferments and rises overnight. That's one thing this hobby requires, though: advance planning!

So, if you're up for a challenge, try making homemade sourdough bread!