Get yer starters ready

Sourdough starter update. So I decided to scrap all the instructions given to me by the BG&H cookbook. I'm now going by tips I've read and tips my brother has told me. I will now share with you so you too can also make your house smell yeasty delicious.

You can find my measurement for my starter over here, but I've come to realize that it really is just equal parts water and flour. I used yeast as you can see but I found out that hardcore bread makers don't like that. If you're just going to do one cup of both water and flour and you do wish to add yeast, a little under a teaspoon of yeast + 1 tsp of sugar and honey would give you the same effect.

I've been feeding my starter everyday. Here is the common bread making rule for feeding:

-remove half or one cup of the starter and then place equal amounts of warm water and flour.

-don't use tap water, use filtered water.

-just stir in the "hooch" or the alcohol when you do want but if your starter is too wet, you can remove some of it.

Now I've known that San Francisco and its surrounding areas have pretty good yeast quality, but I didn't think it would reach as far as where I am. My starter started bubbling within a couple days. Even my second batch of yeast free starter is starting to get crazy.

Anyway, let's talk about my batch today. First take one cup of starter and put it in a bowl with one cup of bread flour and one cup of warm water. Mix together and cover with a towel. This is going to be your "sponge." Now since my area has a good amount of yeast, mine bubbled within two hours. It all depends on your area, but you know your sponge is ready when it has formed bubbles, it ranges between 2-12 hours as I've heard.

Once your sponge is done, place it in your mixer or bread maker machine and combine it with 4 tsp of sugar, 2 tsp olive oil or butter and 2 tsp of salt. Once all that is mix, put one cup at a time of bread flour. Between 2-4 cups. As long as your dough looks elastic, not too dry and not too wet.

Put in a glass and greased bowl and cover with a towel. Let it proof in a warm place until it doubles in size. You can turn on your oven at 350F for a minute then turn it off right away and place your bowl in there.
Once proofed, the fun part, punch it in the middle.

Then knead it into a log shape.

Divide in half.

My dough made enough for two rolls. If you'd like, slice them on top. I did since I think it looks pretty, I wish I sliced larger though. Cover with a towel again and proof it doubles in size.

Bake at 375F for 30-35 minutes or until it sounds hollow in the middle. Let cool on a rack or towel before slicing. 

Isn't it beautiful? Oh it smells just like home.

Ingredients
Sponge:
1 cup water
1 cup bread flour
1 cup starter

Bread
2 cups starter
4 tsp sugar
2 tbsp oil
2 tsp salt
2-4 cups of flour

Bake at 375F for 30-35 minutes or until it sounds hollow.

This is my other starter I'm cultivating. I'm hoping it works since this is yeast free and I'm relying to natural yeast. It has made a home by my window sill.

Smells like there is some fermentation going on.

I'm in a bread kick. I blame my brother for talking me into this. He's going to culinary school right now and he just finished his bread class. Between the two of us, I'm the pastry maker and he's the bread maker. He's been encouraging me though to make a starter and make brioche. He insists it will change my life, probably because I insist to him that crumb coating his cakes will change his life. It's true though, a loaf of brioche costs $4-5 and that's half the size of a regular loaf. I'm not big on making bread because I think it's cheaper to buy a loaf at the store, but there are some that are worth making. I was able to make 2 loaves of brioche today and I calculated that I only spent a little over $2 and that's using organic milk, eggs and natural unbleached flour. That's a savings of $6-10 plus gas money savings.

This was a success. Even my son who would not eat a slice of bread or sandwich begged and tried to steal a few slices of this. The recipe I used was Anne Willan's recipe in her book "The Country Cooking of France." Husband got me the book for my birthday and I haven't really done any recipes on it. I love that book and you should check it out. She has beautiful description of how the countryside of France is and she just takes you over there. She helped me out with a Coq au Riesling recipe. I didn't follow hers completely mostly because I made mine too difficult, but I do recommend her method too. 

I was a little too ambitious today and made sourdough starter. Here's the recipe I used:

2 1/2 C all-purpose flour

2 1/2 C warm water

2 1/4 tsp or 1 packet yeast

2 tsp sugar or honey (I used organic wildflower honey)

(Recipe from the BH&G Baking book)

Mix the yeast with half a cup of water, then when dissolved, mix in the rest of the ingredients. Now it's my first time making a sourdough starter. I think I've made myself nervous about this because I'm obsessing about the best way to make starter. I read that I'm not supposed to stir it with anything metal, well ha, I stirred mine with a spoon. Also I don't know how much it will be affected by the fact that I put it in a container that was too small so when it made the "sponge" it got stuck to my kitchen towels. All I know that if this becomes any kind of pinkish or orange color, it's time to dump it. I might obsess over this more than I did with macarons.

It looks like it's fermenting well and it has created huge bubbles and "hooch" is in and around the starter. I'm going to give it 5-10 days to ferment, stirring it every 2-3 days. I'm using a wooden spoon when I stir it again. I hope to God this makes good sourdough. I guess the worst that can happen is I make a new batch.  This is nerve wracking and I'm testing out my first bread either Thursday this week or Wednesday after. Part of me regrets ever making a starter, another part of me is very excited to make garlic sour dough bread. I can't believe a bowl of flour and yeast is giving me this much anxiety. 

November recap

It feels as if November went by so quickly. Did it really just pass by like that? It was an eventful month for us. This year was the first time I actually got up early to do black Friday shopping. Last time I did, I was pregnant and went to the mall at 8am and only got out with clothes for Elliott since we just found out we were having a boy. This year, B and I got up at 3:30, mustered up some courage to get out of the house 5:30am and kicked ass. As my husband said "all that before coffee!"

This month we spent time with family.

Hung out with some good friends

Accomplished goals (in the rain)

Got our Holiday pictures taken by JG and they turned out Beautiful!

Discovered new favorites

Eat till we couldn't eat anymore

Collected a busted lip (or 2) then proceeded to slather strawberry lipgloss all over the face.

Thanks November. You were such a fun month. I can't wait to see you again next year. You're one of my favorite months, right after October. Haha, get it? Corny? Eh, I tried.

Cotton soft Japanese cheesecake

Two years ago I tried a recipe I found on Japanese cotton soft cheesecake and well, it was a disaster. It was like an eggier version of an omelet only sweet. Yes, that bad. I eluded the idea of making it, I was convinced that Asian desserts are just not my thing. No, seriously, I don't think I'm very good with them. There are a few I can proudly say I'm great at, but for the most part, well, I suck at them. I can conquer a good number of European and American desserts easy, but not Asian. I would say it's probably the measurement. Grams to ounces to the laziness of just buying a dang scale all equate to that.

Tonight though, while perusing around my kitchen trying to decide whether to make donuts or brioche, I discovered in my refrigerator what appeared to be a box of cream cheese slightly opened. It was probably my dad that was over for the weekend. I love him to death, but he ignored my spreadable cream cheese and went for the what's meant for pumpkin cheesecake cream cheese. I needed to use it, one, because I'd hate to procrastinate on that cheesecake plan, two, I can't stand looking at that box. I was all pumpkined out from Thanksgiving so I made cotton soft cheesecake. I'm not particularly a huge cheesecake fan anyway, unless it's blueberry, or mango, or blueberry mango.

I used a cake pan for this seeing as I'm still traumatized by the last experience, but I only filled it halfway. Last time I used a spring form pan which was not properly sealed. Duh, it's not a regular cake, I should have filled it all the way. I ended up using 2 pans but it's ok. I had a chance to brutalize the other one by using pastry cutters and stencils on it.

Now I'm not yet going to publish the recipe for this because I wasn't too happy. I looked at a few recipes and none of them were sweet enough. Nothing like the ones I've had from the Asian markets. It's good, but needs more sugar. I'm glad though I added vanilla this time around unlike last time. I was afraid to add more sugar though because I didn't want the batter to fall. Seeing as it's a bit of a forgiving mix, I'll sweeten it up a bit next time.

I love it though, it wasn't eggy like my first attempt. I'm going to give it another go sometime this week or next. I have matcha green tea coming and maybe I'll make a green tea version of it. 

For now, I'll enjoy this. I'm actually sort of glad I put my batter in 2 pans because I know no one else would share a Hello Kitty stenciled cheesecake with me in this house. 

Consumed by Thanksgiving week

I've been super busy as the rest of America this week. I started Thanksgiving week with a lumpia contest where I lost. Whomp, whomp. Oh well, maybe next year I'll try again. It was super cool to be in a TV Station though. I've never been on TV (well, not a TV studio. I've been on the news before. No, not because I committed a crime! My opinions apparently needed to be heard by the bay area).

I'm going to blame my loss on the fact that Walmart didn't carry any cilantro the day before and I had to use dried cilantro. I never use dried herbs unless it's bay leaves or oregano. Oh, also, I didn't bring sauce since they said no sauce necessary, I'll bring sauce next time. Lesson learned. Thank you again though to all the people that supported me. You guys are the best group of friends a girl can have.

Well, these were the lumpias I used for the competition. I entered a bit too cocky for my own good, but this has been a faithful recipe for me. We'll try again and hopefully reap better results next time.

For now, I'm doing my favorite winter activity which is knitting and crocheting. I've created some ear warmers as a Christmas gift for a friend's daughters and I'm making a cowl neck scarf inspired by a $60 Gap scarf. There was no way anyone can make me pay for that much money for $6 worth of yarn. 

Cooking will be put on hold for now as I have a ton of Thanksgiving leftovers to go through. Also, it's that time of the year that we will be eating out of the pantry. I have apparently been TOO prepared for winter time. I am of course in a baking kick. I've got some ideas and hoping to get great treats. I'm going to have to run again after this bake-a-thon.

Persimmon cookies

Persimmons are one of those fruits that I would tolerate if present, but not exactly crave it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I will eat them. I usually get them from my parents that get the Costco boxes of them, but I'm never one to just grab a few of them on my own. My friend gave me some and I've been wanting to try out persimmon cookies. I heard they make a pumpkin like type of cookie. I researched several recipes, couldn't really find one I fancy too much so I made these. They didn't come out as flat as I wanted them to be, but they came out very cake like. It might be because my persimmons weren't super ripe yet. I'm going to try this same recipe when my persimmons fully ripen. Try it out and let me know what you think.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 cup persimmon puree (I just pulsed the persimmons in the food processor. It took 2 persimmons to achieve the measurement)
2 cups of flour
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup zante currants*

*I like currants a lot, but if you only have raisins, it's ok too.

Preheat the over 350F

Cream the sugar and butter together in the mixer, add the egg and once combined, add the persimmon puree and vanilla. put in all the dry ingredients except for the nuts and raisins (and currants if you want). Just mix until the flour is combined with the wet ingredients, but stopping midway to scrape the bottom. Once the dough is mixed, put the rest of the ingredients and mix again till all the nuts and fruit are incorporated.

On a lightly greased cookie sheet, spoon the dough in rounds and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on a cooling rack.

I survived my first 5k

Back in the summer I decided I was going to start running. I was never a good runner before, but I needed to do something about my post-pregnancy body.  The most I've done since picking up the routine is run for 31 minutes straight but I've only reached about 2.2-2.4 miles with that time. I average about a 14 minute mile, not bad, but not great either. I ran last Monday and for 38 minutes, I only did 2.8 miles. I had this 5k run today and well, 5k is 3.1 miles so I was trying to figure out how in the world I was going to make it under my 40 minute goal. My plan was to run about two-thirds of it then run/walk/run the rest of it. Basically, by the time I reach my usual 25-30 minute straight run, I'll take it a little easy. I didn't plan for this weather though.

Yes, it was raining and it was 46 degrees out.

 My wonderful friend Lisa tried her best to get me to run the whole time, but the rain, was weighing my poor choice of an outfit down and I can feel my lungs piercing in pain. She was such a trooper and have been my partner with running. I really do wish I ran the whole thing with her. When I reached the end all I heard was 53! 53 minutes? Seriously? I just about felt like a failure until the girl that was smart enough to bring a watch with her told me it was 37.50. So 37.50 for my 5k meant I just shaved off a minute and added .3 miles on my run.

There were things I learned in my first 5k:

-I need to invest in those spandex running outfits.
-The windbreaker pants and fleece jacket are a bad idea for a run that's going to be in the rain. Well, probably any run.
-I need a reliable watch.
-There has to be a way I can figure out how to breathe better while running so I don't cramp faster.
-I want to be the girl in the hot pink spandex outfit running pretty next time.

The gobble wobbles did great, we all finished  between 32-38 minutes (I was last, ha!). I want to do another one and hopefully, by that time I can run all 5k. I can walk away from this knowing I finished under my goal and sticking to my plan actually worked.

3/4 of our Gobble Wobbles team.