Bread is good...Home baked is better.

  It is a well known fact that I bake.  In fact, I have been told that I bake far too often.  I have been advised by nutritionists, online health coaches and nurses that "You really should not be eating a lot of baked goods."  Why?  Even my regular doctor and my cardiologist say "Your weight is great, your stats all look good, eat what you want."  So I bake.  I have to admit that Son "groans" a bit when I go on a baking spree because I expect him to eat most of it.  The neighbors probably feel the same but I still bake.  It makes me feel good and now it has become a daily habit. This is probably one of the few things that make me happy, nowadays.  Get up before dawn and spend the time between coffee and sunrise baking some treat.  

  Yesterday, I mentioned that I wanted to bake something besides the usual sweets.  Son suggested a seeded sourdough bread.  "That has always been my favorite." he mused. So...come 4am, I pulled different seeds from the pantry shelf and proceeded.  The sourdough starter had been happily bubbling away for the past week or so it was needing to be used.  It took about 15 minutes to put together a nice dough filled with soaker seeds (sesame, pumpkin, chia, quinoa, amaranth and flax seed soaked in hot water).  It was time to let it rise so I headed out to check the garden.  The rain from last night lingered on as a drizzle making it uncomfortable to be outside.  This made it the perfect day to be baking that bread!  Once inside, I formed the loaves, let it rise again then baked.  The house smelled wonderful and, by noon, two warm, home-baked loaves of seeded sourdough were ready to eat!  One for us..one for the neighbors.  Now...what to bake tomorrow???

Midnight Baking

   Last night was interesting, to say the least.  It was chilly so I had the old woodburning stove chugging away.  Several nice sized hickory logs would slow burn for most of the night keeping the Little Bayou House somewhat warm.  Along about midnight, I awoke to the delightful scent of bread baking.  Hmmm?  Was I dreaming?  Did Son decide to try his hand at baking in the middle of the night?  Had a burglar entered then opt for making cinnamon rolls instead of thievery?  Since the only logical scenario was that I was dreaming, I promptly put my head back on the pillow and tried to sleep.  Nope.  Somewhere in this house, bread was baking and I was hungry!  I might as well get up and investigate.  Plus, the fire probably needed stoking anyway.

  My "dream" was not a dream at all and, no, neither Son nor any intruder was making breakfast.  Instead, I found my delectable aroma.  Earlier in the week, I had longed to bake sourdough bread but had no starter.  I had given my last bit away and needed to begin again.  Well, I did.  My sourdough starter had been put together three days ago and, since the house gets rather cold at night and I was in a hurry, I placed the starter on the back of the old woodstove.  There it would stay a nice 80 degrees and could grow rapidly.  It was far enough away from the heat not to spoil nor scorch yet stay almost lukewarm.  Sourdough starter does not smell like much for the first couple of days but give it a few and it starts to give off that nice, yeasty smell.  That was what I was smelling...not bread baking but yeast making!  My brain just twisted the two together and left me with hunger pangs!

  This morning, the sourdough starter looked divine.  A few more days and this will be the beginning of many tasty treats.  There is something oddly satisfying about creating your own yeast from scratch.  Try it!  It is not hard at all but you do need a bit of patience as it takes a while.  Happy baking, folks!