I recently decided to make another sourdough starter and try my hand at sourdough breads again. Last week, I mixed up a batch of starter. It foamed away nicely, soured sweetly and has been stored in my fridge waiting for a day like today when I felt like making bread.

So, being in the mood for a good bread to go with tonight's spinach manicotti dinner, I pulled out the starter this morning. I poured off two cups of starter to warm up for the bread and fed the remaining starter. Three hours later when the starter was warm, I started making my bread. Only problem was that Simon woke up from his nap just when I was ready to start the bread, so I was slightly distracted with him. Okay, I was extremely distracted. I threw together the water, yeast, bread, sugar and starter when I noticed how liquidy the dough was. Odd.

I checked the recipe and realized that I was supposed to use a quarter cup of water, not the two cups of water I had added. Oops. As I got ready to throw out the liquidly mess, it occurred to me that I had put in the correct proportions of starter, water, flour and sugar to have actually created more starter. Now the dilemma. Do I throw it out or do I let it grow and have about three time more sourdough starter on hand than I actually need?

I decided to let it grow. I dumped the mess into a ten cup bowl. An hour later, I walked through the kitchen to discover it all over the counter. I scraped it into a large tupperware bowl. It kept growing. The foaming mass reached the top, bubbling up over the rim, but thankfully the surface tension kept it all in. I now have a boatload of sourdough starter on hand! Anyone want some?

There was exactly enough starter leftover from my established batch to create two loaves of sourdough bread, so we were able to have it with dinner after all. I paired a scrumptious piece with (local, organic) huckleberry jam for a tasty snack tonight. It is a good thing we like sourdough because I will be making a number of loaves in the next couple of days!

On a completely unrelated note, here is what you might find if you were to leave Vincent outside to with a shop vac and his imagination.