Crinella Family Cookbook
Our Grandparents' Favorites
Anti Pasti
Soups
Salads
Pasta
Vegetables
Fish
Poultry
Meat
Wild Game
Sweets
Brunch or Luncheon Dishes
Odds & Ends
Sour Dough
Other Breads ETC
New Italian Sauce Recipes
New Lower Fat Recipes
Slow Cooker Recipes
Entertaining Ideas
Table of Contents
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Sourdough Recipes
Sour Dough Starter
Sour Dough French Bread
Sour Dough Pancakes
Caulfield Hill Corn Cakes
Peach Nut Bread
Sour Dough Pizza
Grilled Pizza
2005 Sauvignon Blanc
2005 Glissando
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Sour Dough Recipes
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The queen of all breads is sour dough French bread, created here in
California during the gold rush in 1849. Later when the Californians
including our grandfather, went up to Alaska during the Yukon Gold
Rush most of them brought along a jar of sour dough starter which was used
to raise the bread and also give it a wonderful texture and taste. The fame
of sour dough spread from there throughout the world. The difference
between the sour dough starter and other starters such as the Italian
starter called "biga" is that the sour dough starter is not made fresh each
time and therefore has a more fully developed flavor.
You can buy a pretty good bread but it will never equal home made.
To make sour dough breads you need to make the starter first which is easy
to do. You store the starter in your refrigerator when you are using it
regularly and in the freezer when you don't plan to bake for a while. The
sour dough starter expands so you have to store it in your refrigerator
"lightly covered." Although Ramona was interested in learning to make
sour dough breads she didn't like the idea of anything "lightly covered"
in the refrigerator and presumably giving off and receiving odors.
Eventually she found that the best way to store the starter is in a snap
lid glass jar which you do not snap so there is room for the starter to
expand. The sourdough starter can be kept for years.
We have also tried the home bread machine and conclude nothing comes
from it but a poor excuse for bread of any sort. Breadmaking is an art as
is pasta making and no exact recipe can be used for adding flour because
the proper amount depends on the amount of moisture in the air that
particular day.
Once you have made your own starter it is pretty easy to keep. Store it
in a snap lid glass jar which you do not snap shut as the starter will
expand somewhat. Occasionally remove the contents, wash and dry the
jar and replace contents. Freeze when not using for a while.
Period. Some people allege the starter has to be stirred everyday or
"fed" on some strict schedule and God knows what else. Not true. If you
use the starter once a week, you need do nothing else to it except
replenish it as you use it.
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