What to do with a flavoured, windowpaned, inactive-sourdough dough?
I thought I would revive my sourdough starter after a few months of tending exclusively to my human children, and forgot that I'm supposed to give it a few days of feeds before properly making bread. I obliviously mixed up a wet, enriched, decent sized dough to windowpane, saw it rise a bit, and thought "Great, I'll just quickly shape and give it a long proof." It's now sat without moving for the last 24 hours and I realised belatedly that the first few rises I saw before were probably from bacterial activity and at this point the yeast was probably just sitting there wistfully wondering what happened to its acidic environment.
What can I use it for? Not bread with added yeast, surely. The gluten is already windowpaning. It won't stand any more mixing. I just threw it into the bread maker to beat the gluten to pieces. Would that make a nice soda-risen cake, do you think?
I assume I should have fed it a couple more times before making anything with it.
Other, much more experienced bakers might have a better idea, but what I would do is dissolve some yeast in a little warm water. Then flatten the dough out as much as you can, spread the yeast evenly over the dough, fold the dough over a few times, and then gently knead it to incorporate it.
Wow, I never thought of that! I love the ingenious ideas on this forum.
I ended up making a cake this time. When I'd tried to make bread the first time, it had been sitting in the bottom of a cake tin on some baking paper, so I had to scrape that off first and it looked so unbready at that point I didn't think there was any hope for it. Will try your idea next time, thanks.
Let it stand until gluten disintegrates completely, then use it to make waffles or pancakes.
Yep! I pretty much did this and made a cake. But I proactively kneaded it to pieces first, too.
I second the motion to add moistened yeast to it. Taste the dough and save a pinch to finish fermenting before adding instant yeast and letting it rise. Treat like a poolish recipe. My guess would be you got the bacteria flavouring the dough, just haven't got the yeast numbers up high enough.
If it tastes sour, you can add soda to kick off some CO2 bubbles but get it into the oven soon after mixing and shaping.
So it's been awhile.... any outcome?
Ah, didn't save some from the dough. Would have been interesting. I had some in the starter jar which seemed to do fine (I ignored it really), but it had had lemon juice added to it (no pineapple), which I'm assuming affected things.
I haven't been in the habit of tasting my dough, just smelling it. Isn't it bad to taste raw stuff? What about if you had added eggs? Does it not really make a difference? My bread is usually on the sour side though. Soda is a typical addition for my final doughs.
As for the outcome, I baked it, added soda and made a cake. It was somewhat the texture of bread, so a dry cake, but a cake that my toddler would be satisfied with. Next time. This wasn't the first time I made this mistake and it won't be the last!
you can always spit it out and if it struck you a very bad tasting, chase it with something distilled and tasty.
Enough of my kitchen science! :)
Tasting it will tell you how sour the starter or dough actually is. When it tastes very sour but no yeast seems to be there to pick up the dough, then the starter is way out of balance with too much bacteria. Time to work on the starter for a while to get the yeast numbers up and that requires warmer temps than the fridge (around 25° C) and watching the starter with while increasing the food level. When it finally gets to rising, add more flour to encourage the yeast. Do not go too warm during fermentation for this encourages the bacterial growth more.
To keep it small discard/ reduce it's size to about 40g or 1/4 cup and add fresh flour and water. At least double the volume of starter with each feeding, the flour weight being equal or more than the starter culture weight. Wait for it to peak in activity and feed again.
As the yeast numbers become satisfactory, wait until the peak starts to fall before feeding to ensure enough bacteria make it to the next feeding to help the starter culture defend itself.
Use the very sour discard in muffins or other quick breads.