Meet Tom

I arrived really late to the sourdough party but in very Alison-fashion, I tend to suss out trends before I decide if I want to try them out. At the peak of quarantine life, my instagram feed was filled with beautiful loaves of sourdough while I was happily eating bread I had purchased at the grocery store. But now that it's easier to get my hands on a bag of flour and since I was in need of a new project, I thought it was the perfect time to join the sourdough craze.

Being a newbie to sourdough bread making, I thought it would be easier to procure starter from a friend, in hopes that I would have a higher success rate. It was a smaller amount of starter than what most recipes I've seen online so his daily feeding is 2 tbs of flour and 1 tbs of water mixed with half of it discarded. He was named Tom since I recently watched the mini-series Quiz with actor who plays Tom Wambsgans from Succession (aka Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice). 

With Tom's gifts, I made a loaf of Vermont Sourdough and Sourdough Pizza Crust. 

In all honestly, the bread making was trickier than I thought it would be. It takes some planning since the process can take up to three days to bake the loaf. 

• Day 1 (Night before dough making): create levain with starter and let rest overnight
• Day 2: Babysit dough on and off for about 5.5 hours if you want to bake it the same day (or 3.5 hours with a refrigeration overnight for next day bake). 
• Day 3: Heat oven for 45 minutes before bake. Then bake for 40-45 minutes. 

How'd my first loaf turn out, you ask? 

    Tasted great but the loaf turned out a little too dense. Will continue to work on my technique but going to improve my bread making at a slow pace because let's be honest, bread making is high maintenance.

In the meantime, going to use the starter for Sourdough Scallion Pancakes and Pizza and other discard recipes. 

This pizza did have a waiting period of 2-4 hours plus 15 minutes, but it seemed so low-key compared to the bread making. It was also a great way to use up farmers market veggies.The crust had a hint of sourdough flavor and was a little on the pillowy side but still pretty delicious. 

Check out this next installment of my Pretend Cooking show featuring the pizza making.