What Are Your Sourdough Tips?

My first loaf of the season -- extra tangy from a starter that had been dormant for 10 months.

I know there are a few of us here that make or have made sourdough bread and keep or kept a sourdough starter. So I thought I'd ask you friends for tips.

Every January I get my starter out of the fridge and work to revive it. Winter is not the best time of year to do sourdough in a house that stays around 64 degrees F during the day and dips down to about 61 degrees F at night. Starters generally don't do very well in colder temps. But this is the time of year that I actually have time to babysit a starter.

Here are my two tips for keeping a starter or rising dough warmer in a cold house.

1) When I've got a bowl of dough to rise, I set the bowl over another bowl of warm water. The top bowl (with the dough in it) sits an inch or so above the water level of the lower bowl. And the water is just warm and not hot. During the day I periodically rewarm the bowl of water in the microwave. Just before bed at night (if allowing to rise over night) I rewarm the water one last time. It's enough to give my dough a boost.

2) For the starter itself, I leave it on the counter just behind the warming bowl and on top of a dish towel. We have quartz countertops, which stay cool to the touch all day and all night long. Placing a dish towel underneath the jar of starter insulates it just a smidge against the cold countertop.

What have you learned about making sourdough over years? Any tips for lofty loaves? What do you do to revive a dormant starter when it has sat in the fridge for a while? Do you have a particular spot in your kitchen for proofing dough or keeping a starter vibrant?

No Sugar Added Apple Bread Pudding

In my pursuit of less added sugar this year, I ventured into the realm of no added sugar desserts this week. I made a no added sugar apple bread pudding.

I had a bunch of bread crusts leftover from tea sandwiches over the weekend -- once cubed, a little over 2 cups. I also had some applesauce from our tree apples thawed in the fridge. I asked Chat GPT for a recipe for bread pudding with no added sugar, using applesauce and apples. Here's what it came up with.

2 1/2 cups bread cubes
3/4 cup applesauce
3/4 cup milk (I used soy milk)
1 large egg
1/2 large apple, peeled and finely diced (I used frozen cubes of apples, with peel on, about 1 cup)
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup raisins (I used about 1/3 cup)

I also added 1/8 teaspoon salt, definitely needed it.

What I wish I would have added was 1 teaspoon vanilla and an extra egg.  As it was, though, the bread pudding was sweet like a homemade muffin and had lots of flavor. An extra egg would have made more of a custard. And the vanilla would have added to the flavor. It also might have benefitted from a tablespoon of melted butter added to the liquid mixture before combining with the bread cubes, apples, and raisins.

I baked mine in a buttered pie plate at 350 for about 25 to 3o minutes, until a knife inserted came out clean. Once done I cut it into wedges.

Delicious! I'll make this again with an extra egg, some vanilla extract, and a tablespoon of melted butter.