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Submitted by NechamaYael on September 16, 2009 - 9:11pm Please help - startersI am new to the site and am feeling a little overwhelmed so I was hoping someone could help me out with a few pointers on starters. I have made French bread once before and potato bread that you cook in big terracotta flower pots and they came out decent. I am most experienced with Challah which I used to make every week. I don't like buying it every week and homemade is so much better so I would like to get back into making it myself. I have made a few variations of challah and have a recipe that I (and everyone else) particularly like. I was recently introduced to the concept of Friendship Bread and love the idea of using a starter instead of comercial yeast and then being able to use the same starter indefinitely. Where I am getting confused is: I don't want to make sourdough and almost all of the starter recipes I am finding are for sourdough breads. Is there any way around this? Also, there are so many variations of starter recipes that I hardly know where to start. I am overwhelmed with all the information available out there. Perhaps someone could give me some advice or point me to a thread that will answer my questions if someone has already asked them. This is the instructions one of my student's parents (I am a public school teacher) gave me for a friendship bread starter. Do not use any type of metal spoon or bowl. Do not refrigerate. If air gets into the bag, let it out. It is normal for the batter to rise and ferment. Day 1: Do nothing, this is the day you receive the batter. The bag is dated. Day 2: Mash the bag Day 3: Mash the bag Day 4: Mash the bag Day 5: Mash the bag Day 6: Add to the bag :1 C. flour 1 C. sugar and 1 C. cold milk. Mash the bag. Day 7: Mash the bag Day 8: Mash the bag Day 9: Mash the bag Day 10: Follow the directions below: 1. Pour the entire contents of the bag into a Non Metal Bowl. 2. Add 1 1/2 C. flour, 1 1/2 C. of sugar, 1 1/2 C. of milk 3. Measure out 4 separate batters (1 cup each) into 4 Ziplock (1 gallon bags). Keep a starter bag for yourself and give 3 to friends with a copy of the recipe. Note: If you keep a starter for yourself you will be baking every 10 days. Why don't I just use their starter? Firstly, I want to know how to make it myself- I just gotta know! Secondly, I keep a kosher home and I don't know the conditions under which their starter was made so I would prefer to just make my own from scratch. They gave me the instructions though and well, here I am. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The kids at school keep talking about how great this bread is and I would really love to make it and possibly use it as a sweet starter for my challah. Thank you!!
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Friendship starter
The starter you describe usually comes with a recipe for Friendship bread. It's sweet, rich bread that looks and tastes a lot more like a quick bread made with baking powder than a typical sourdough or yeasted bread. Great for dessert, but not so much for sandwiches. And the starter, I think, is usually begun with commercial yeast rather than wild yeast. I hadn't yet heard of anyone using the starter to make challah or other breads. With all of the sugar it contains, I'm not sure I'd care to use it for other breads.
There are a number of dedicated challah bakers here on TFL that can probably point you to challahs (challot?) which call for a natural-yeast starter, so I'll defer to their experience.
Paul
starters for challah
Maggie Glezer's book, A Blessing of Bread, has every recipe you could imagine for challah, yeasted or not.
Thanks!
Thanks to both of you for getting back to me so soon. Chayarivka- I've seen this book mentioned a couple of times while looking around this site. I don't know how I've never heard of this book before recently. I guess no one else in my community is as into bread making as I am. I'm going to order it tonight.
Thanks again!
Difference between sourdough and using starter?
Just out of curiousity - you would like to use a starter, but don't want sourdough - what is the difference you are hoping to avoid? Is it the sour flavor?
At any rate, there are many traditions of using pate fermente or other old dough methods for holding back a portion of the dough to use for tomorrow's loaf, most of which I think will give you what you are looking for. Also, there are methods of maintaining a starter that do not result in a sour flavor in your finished bread. If you don't find what you are looking for in the book you ordered, come back and let us know. Heck, come back and let us know whichever way it turns out - we all love a good baking story.
brad
Yes
I am trying to avoid the sour flavour. I like sourdough just fine, but it's not what I'm looking for at the moment. I am very interested in this "old dough" method so any recipes for non-sour starters would be greatly appreciated. I am especially intrigued by this friendship bread as everyone says it is so good, but as I said before, I can't use the starter I have access to because of kosher laws. Sorry if I'm not making sense.
In short: I am looking for
1.) a friendship bread starter recipe (at this point with or without commercial yeast is fine)
2.) other non-sour starters to experiment with.
Thanks for all the help. Everyone has been so great. :)
Experiment 1 and 2
I have picked a starter recipe and I'm going try it. I am going to try 2 variations of this and see what happens (my b/f is a science teacher- I hope he doesn't make me write up a lab report!)
1. Friendship starter with milk.
2. Friendship starter with water.
Ratio of 1:1:1 Flour, sugar and liquid. + 1 Tbs yeast.
I will let everyone know how it turns out.
Suggestions still very welcome.