Thankful Thursday: Sourdough Edition

So, a couple weekends ago, I took a free class at one of our favorite local shops, The Cupboard. It was about how to make sourdough bread. I'm thankful...

1. ...to have taken a class in person. Hooray for in person classes! I've since poked around online and the sheer volume of recipes and advice is overwhelming. For now, I'm just following what the lovely Maren told me to do. So there. :)

2. ...that I went with a friend. Lynne joined me and it's been great since we can check with each other about what Maren said and compare notes and buy supplies/tools together. Yay!

3. ...that the first bake went pretty well! Anyhow...back to my story...last weekend, I made my first batch of sourdough bread! Maren gave us all some of her starter at the class and this is what I ended up with...

I'm so pleased with the fact that it turned out like bread! I'll still be tweaking things a little...but, hey, it came out looking and tasting like bread. Whew. :)

4. ...that gathering the tools and such for this whole thing led to rearranging our countertops. And, along the way, I acquired a few new things...which necessitated rearranging some areas in the kitchen. It wasn't a major process but was a nice opportunity to do some reorganizing. Plus, so far (which is admittedly not far, lol), I'm really happy with my purchase choices. Yay for the new dutch oven (which I've also used to make soup!) and the cool silicone slings (that made moving and transferring the dough/bread so much easier) and the proofing baskets (which worked exactly as Maren promised they would).

Plus, in rearranging the counters, I updated a few existing things, which was also fun. Still have a few things on my list, too...;) 

5. ...that we'll hopefully enjoy homemade bread with known ingredients going forward. I have plans to bake again this weekend. I don't know that it will be a regular thing but I want to try the recipe again and hone this one before I try anything else. It's nice knowing exactly what's in what we're eating. (We don't eat a lot of bread in the first place, actually, as I generally try to avoid gluten. But I know that sourdough messes with blood sugar spikes the least so feel like it's a better choice...and feel even better being able to use flours that don't have other additives in them.)

So. That's my sourdough story so far. I didn't get in on the bandwagon during the pandemic but am happy to be starting now. :)