California Dreaming

I knew there were things I would miss when we left California: family, friends, the good food, the ocean. But I didn't expect to miss the fog!

It started in September when my dad sent me these beautiful pictures of the Bay Area at sunrise.

Marin, California

If you look at the second photo closely you can see the fog:

Fog is such a Bay Area thing and I realized that I missed the big, gray blanket that creeps up every night.

And then Fall arrived in Ann Arbor! One morning we woke up to this:

Not exactly the same, but it was a close approximation!

And so, feeling inspired, I set out to make the other San Francisco thing that I've been missing. In fact, I've been missing this since long before we left California: sourdough bread.

I spent a while researching how regular sourdough starter is made and then found a few websites detailing how to make a gluten free version. Then I kind of winged it.

For a long time I thought that sourdough could only be made in the Bay Area, but after finding some on our honeymoon in North Carolina, I became very interested in the process. Sourdough is created from a sourdough starter, which is just flour, water, and wild yeast. Wild yeast is everywhere around us, so you could technically just set a jar of flour and water on the counter and collect the yeast from the air. However, it's easier if you can give the yeast a bit of a jump start.

(Oh, and just so you know, the sourdough grown in the Bay Area is special. That is the only place where you can find that particular wild yeast and the bread comes out tasting more sour.)

In my research I learned that the wild yeast can be found concentrated on organic produce. You know the white film that you find on purple cabbage? Yup, that's wild yeast. It can also be found easily on apples, and since we picked a whole bunch fresh from the orchard, I used some of the peels to begin the starter.

I used a clean half-gallon jar, added 1 cup brown rice flour and 1 cup water, mixed it up, then added the apple peels and covered the jar with a bit of cheese cloth. If you leave the jar on the counter, the porous cover allows wild yeast in the air to find it's way into the mix and help the growing and fermenting. After 12 hours I added another cup of flour and one cup of water (the key is to always add the same amount of water and flour). Every 12 hours for 4 days I added flour and water. I changed up the flours, sometimes adding millet, sometimes sorghum, sometimes garfava. The yeast seemed to really enjoy the garfava!

After about 2 days little bubbles appeared and the mix started to smell sour - the yeast was alive and growing!

After 4 days I added flour only once a day and sometimes added 1/4 or 1/2 cup flour (and equal water), and removed the apple peels. I kept adding flour and water for two weeks. At the end of the two weeks it was time to make some bread! I used this recipe as a basic guide since I'd never baked with starter before, but made only a half batch (which made two baguettes). I also substituted brown rice flour for the sweet white rice flour.

Here are the formed baguettes:

And here they are after 4 hours of rising:

Yes!! The yeast worked!

Because I used home-grown starter, there wasn't a way for me to tell how much yeast was in my mix, so I was very pleased to see how well the bread rose.

I brushed on some water to make a crunchy crust and then cut slashes to help with oven rise:

And here is what they looked like when they came out:

Close up

Backside

This bread was delicious! I couldn't believe how well it turned out. It was sour and crusty, but the inside was soft and airy. It was just like eating real bread! Even my non-gluten free taste-tester thought it was good. I will definitely be making this again.

The nice thing about sourdough starter is that as long as you keep feeding it, it will keep growing. And if you can't feed it for a few days, just stick it in the fridge and it will grow more slowly. I made sure not to use all of my original starter for the baguettes and just added some more flour and water at the end. I've been doing that every day and I almost have enough starter to make some more bread—just in time too, because it's almost all gone!

Let me know if you want to try this and I can answer any questions. It really isn't difficult.