Nel

July 10, 2008 at 7:54am

For DF, who wanted a quick, crusty sourdough. I can't guarantee anything, since I'm a beginner with soudough! I've got a wonderfully active starter (wild yeast from here in Poland, which didn't have much 'ooomph,' until I fed it with 1/2 cup of home-grown, home-ground whole-wheat my Dad made in California, then it blew the lid off the container!). I had a LOT of starter - nice and winey and strong - and didn't want to throw it out. So I fed it and and set it out overnight. It doubled, and I put about two cups of the starter into a bowl. I added about half a teaspoon of instant yeast (the kind you don't have to proof in water), a teaspoon of salt and a pinch of sugar. Then I started adding flour until I had a good, workable dough. Turned it out on a floured board and kneaded it until it was smooth. I used it to make two pizzas (14-inch, thick and puffy). I baked the crusts first until they were baked but not browned, added toppings and put them back into the oven to finish baking. As for crusty, I haven't advanced so far as to get a cloche or rig something up (cloches aren't available here). So the dough didn't have that good, thick crust of a cloche-baked sourdough loaf. The pizza crusts did turn out good and crispy on the bottom. But the important thing was the FLAVOR! YummmMMY. I'm so happy with the flavor of this sourdough starter I've got. I think if you are happy with your sourdough starter, you can just feed it up until you've got too much, and then use maybe 1/3 starter to 2/3 flour with the addition of half a teaspoon or so of commercial yeast. My dough doubled in an hour. I let it sit in the pizza pans for another half hour (I was hungry!) and got good oven spring. I've been baking yeast breads for 30 years, so for me, I don't need a scientifically accurate recipe: just the basic more-or-less ingredients and knowing how the dough should look and behave. If you're confident, I think you can try this method. The commercial yeast gives you the quick rise you want; the large amount of sourdough starter gives you the flavor.
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