Sourdough - Keeping and Feeding

A Sourdough man in a cup

I often use sourdough in my baking. I like the texture and flavor the sourdough give baked goods. I started using my sourdoughs 5 years ago, and they are still going strong. I was somewhat unsure how to start my sourdough, so I bought it online at KingArthurFlour.com. I divided it in two, feeding one with rye flour (for Danish rye bread) and one with whole wheat (for breads like Basic country bread a la Tartine). I bake with a young sourdough, which means it has fermented for about 8 hours, making for a mild flavor-profile. The longer the fermentation the more sour you bread becomes.

Many are afraid to bake with sourdough, because they have to maintain and feed it. But here are my tips and tricks to maintain a sourdough. 

Feeding:

Feed the starter every 2-3 weeks or about 8 hours before you need it for baking. If you bake everyday you don’t have to feed the sourdough before using.

If you have a liquid on top of the sourdough, discard this. If you mix it in, your sourdough get way to sour. Discard about half the sourdough before feeding, so you feed about ½-1 cup sourdough. I do not measure this. I just discard about half and do the feeding directly in the storage container.

Rye sourdough:                    

• ½-1 cup sourdough

• ½ cup dark rye flour

• ½ cup all-purpose flour

• 1 cup water

 Wheat sourdough:

• ½-1 cup sourdough

• ½ cup whole wheat flour

• ½ cup all-purpose flour

• 1 cup water

Directions:

Mix well, so all the flour is wet, let stand on the kitchen table for about 8 hour or overnight, fermenting. The sourdough will now be bubbling and smell kinda like beer. Now you can use the sourdough for baking, or store it in the refrigerator. 

When baking save about ½-1 cup of the fed sourdough for your next bake, this will be your new starter.

Keeping:

Keep the sourdough in the refrigerator in a closed container, double the size of the volume of the sourdough. The sourdough will keep in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks with no feeding. With the long rest in the refrigerator you will have a dark liquid on top, discard this before feeding. (This will keep the sourdough from becoming to acidic.)

If you think your sourdough is gotten too sour to your taste. Just feed the sourdough 2-3 days in a row. This will freshen up the sourdough, and eliminate the harsh acidity you might have in the sourdough. 

Generally I only use "young" sourdough, meaning a newly fed sourdough in my baking.

Gingerbread Loaf

Gingerbread Loaf

Today is the first Sunday in Advent - only 3 Sundays more until Christmas.

Gingerbread anything tells you christmas is coming. If you missed the pumpkin-train with everything pumpkin leading up to the gingerbread and peppermint in everything, the christmas or December celebrations are here. 

I do really love this time of year. The lights, the decorating, the cookie baking, It makes me happy. Well, somewhat stressful but happy.

Starbucks and most other coffeeshops sell these lovely gingerbread loafs during this season, and they taste so good with a warm cup of coffee. So I kick off my christmas/December celebration with my version of the coffeeshops Gingerbread loaf, a flavorful dark cake with a sweet but tangy frosting on top. 

Makes 1 (9-inch) loaf.

Ingredients:

• 75 g brown sugar

• 113 g (1 stick) butter, salted and room temperature

• 2 eggs

• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

• 120 ml molasses (mørk sirup)

• 225 g all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 2 teaspoons ground ginger

• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

• ¼ teaspoon ground allspice

• 1 pinch ground cloves

• 120 ml (½ cup) buttermilk

Frosting:

• 225 g cream cheese

• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

• ½ teaspoon orange juice

• 225 g confectionary sugar (powder sugar)

Sprinkle:

• Candied ginger

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350℉ (180℃). Grease a 9-inch loaf pan, and set aside.

Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves and nutmeg) in a medium bowl, set aside.

Cream the butter with the brown sugar, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between the addition. Mix in the vanilla and molasses. Fold in alternately dry ingredients and milk. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake it in the oven for about 45 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

Let the cake cool in the pan. When cooled, mix the frosting, and frost the cake. Decorate the cake with candied ginger and serve it with a good cup of coffee.

Enjoy!

Apple Pie-tini

Apple Pie-tini

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers in the US (and Americans in general).

As a somewhat newly arrived Dane in the US, Thanksgiving is a Holiday we just have to pass to get to the December celebration. I have never been too fond of turkey. Well, I had a very good roasted turkey at a Thanksgiving celebration at my dorm in Denmark. We had an American exchange student (Andy) living there, and we all went all in on making a big Thanksgiving celebration with him. And as for most dinners with young people at a dorm, it turned in to a great Party. This party is still my fondest Thanksgiving memory.

I hope you all are enjoying the holiday.

Makes 2 drinks

Ingredients:

Drink:

• 90 ml vanilla vodka

• 90 ml apple cider, unfiltered

• 25 ml lemon juice

• 1-2 tablespoons honey

Decoration:

• 1 apple, in slices sprinkled with lemon juice

• 2 cinnamon stick

Rim:

• lemon juice

• baker's sugar (extra fine sugar)

• ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

Cut up the apple and sprinkle the slices with lemon juice to prevent them turning brown.Mix sugar and cinnamon on a shallow plate. Make sure not to have any lumps of sugar. Pour some lemon juice in another shallow plate. Dip the rims of the glasses in the lemon juice, shake them to remove any excess juice. Dip the rim of the glasses in the sugar mixture, making sure to cover all of the rim.

Mix the ingredients for the drink in a shaker with ice. Pour the drink into the glasses and decorate with apple slices and cinnamon sticks.

Enjoy!

Apple Pie

Apple Pie

Nothing is as American as Apple pie. Well, this might not be true. But pies are a big thing here in the US. My favorite pie is Apple pie, and this one is one of the best. 

It's not all that simple to get the pie perfect. You need to have the perfect balance between a crispy/flaky crust and the creamy, sweet/tart filling. You want the pie to hold up to slicing and keeping the filling inside the crust. Making this Apple pie allows me to do this.

The recipe is adapted from Copenhagencakes.

Makes 1 pie (9 inch).

Ingredients:

Pie Crust:

• 260 g butter, salted and cold

• 360 g all-purpose flour

• 2 tablespoons confectionary sugar (powdered sugar)

• 75 ml water, ice-cold

Filling:

• 6-7 apples*,

• 100 g butter

• 120 g sugar

• 75 g brown sugar

• 50 g water

• 30 g all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

• 1½ tsk cinnamon

• 1 egg yolk for brushing the crust

Directions: 

Crust:

Cube the butter and place it in the refrigerator.

Put the flour and sugar in the food processor and pulse just until combined. Add the cold butter pieces and pulse until the mixture looks like small coarse crumbs. Drizzle the water over the flour and pulse again until the dough just comes together.

Divide the dough in two discs and wrap them separately in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for 3 hours.

On a floured work surface roll the dough out to about ⅒ inch thickness. You want the dough yo be larger than your pie pan, so you end up with a ⅓ inch overhang on a 9 inch pan. Place the pan with the dough in the refrigerator, until ready to fill.

Preheat the oven to 430℉ (220℃).

Filling:

Mix flour, cinnamon in a bowl and set aside. Melt butter, sugars in a saucepan. Mix the water with the cornstarch, and pour it in the butter/sugar mixture. Add vanilla and the flour/cinnamon, stir the mixture while the sauce thickens.

Peel, core and slice the apples in thin slices. Do not soak the apples in water, this will make the filling to watery. Place the apple slices in the pie pan, and pour the sauce over the apples.

Brush the edges with egg wash. Roll out the rest of the dough for the lid, as thin as the other part. Place the lid on top, and firmly press the edges together to seal them. you can do this by hand or with a fork. Use the excess dough to cut out decorations for the pie. 

Optional: brush the lid with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar on top.

Cut 4-8 slids in the dough lid, to allow the steam to escape during baking. 

Bake the pie in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes. Lower the heat to 360℉ (180℃) and bake it for another 50 minutes until the pie is a deep golden brown. 

Let the pie cool completely, before slicing. This part is the hardest. The smell of this delicious apple pie, makes you wanting to dive in immediately. But if you let it cool first, and then reheat, it will make the slicing so much easier. 

Serve the pie with creme fraiche or a good vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

* Use apples that are good for cooking: Granny Smith, Pippin, Gravenstein, Mcintosh, Fugi, Jonathan, Jonagold or Golden Delicious.

Cremelinser - Custard filled Tartlets

Cremelinser - Custard filled Tartlets

Danes like their cakes. Cremelinser or custard filled tartlets is another classic danish cake. The cake is not overly sweet, but has great textures. I really like the crispy flaky crust with the creamy vanilla filling.

I remember cremelinser as an old lady cake, mostly because we only got them when we went to visit my grandmother. I got a new appreciation for the cake, working at the baker's shop, where we sold loads of them to people in all ages.

Makes 8-10 tartlets.

Ingredients:

Custard:

• 3 egg yolks

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• 1 tablespoon cornstarch

• 2,5 dl milk

• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

Pastry:

• 300 g all-purpose flour

• 150 g butter, salted and room temperature

• 100 g confectionary sugar (powdered sugar)

• 1 egg

Directions:

Custard:

Beat the egg yolks and sugar until pale in color. Whisk in the cornstarch and vanilla paste.

Heat the milk to a slow boil, set aside. 

While whisking vigorously drizzle the warm milk into the egg yolk mixture, just a tiny bit at a time at first. Once you’ve added about ¼ of the milk, you can add the rest in a thin steady stream, whisking constantly.

Pour the mixture back in the saucepan and reheat it over medium heat. Whisk constantly until it thickens. Remove from heat and pour into a bowl.  Sprinkle with sugar or press some plastic wrap against the custard so it won't form a pudding skin. Chill the custard completely in the refrigerator.

Pastry:

Mix the butter in the flour and sugar in a stand mixer. Add the egg and mix just until the dough starts to lump together. Form the dough into 2 discs and wrap it in plastic wrap, and let it rest for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 360℉ (180℃).

On a floured surface roll one of the dough discs to about 1/10-inch (3 mm) thickness. Cut out round a little larger than the tartlet pans. Line the pans, letting the dough hanging a bit over the edge. 

Roll out the other disc to the same thickness, and cut out rounds for tartlet lids.

Fill the tartlets ⅔ with the custard, and place the lid on top. Gently press down along the edge to seal the tartlet. Bake the tartlets for 15-20 minutes until light golden brown. The cooking time will vary depending on size.

Let the tartlets cool completely before removing from the pans. 

Enjoy!