Sourdough Bread Recipe

I want to share my latest changes to our sourdough recipe.  This has been a 2 year journey.  Rich made the starter in January of 2013 and we started making buns and cinnamon rolls.  Last year I wanted to start making loaves.  I used the same recipe as the buns, but it didn't have a lot of lift, so our bread was pretty yummy but a dense bread.  We enjoyed it because of the flavor and that it was really good for you.  I made some cinnamon bread and learned that rolling the dough out thin, spreading egg white on it and sprinkling is generously with cinnamon worked the best.  All my little technics came from trial and error.  I got some info from the internet but most of it I discovered on my own.  I am writing this all down for Mary.  I wished I could of learned this from my mom but most bread making art was lost because of the commercial breads.  Well, about a month ago I started adding extra yeast to give it more lift and then I thought how wet the dough was, which made the bread moist but it was too heavy.  So instead of adding 2 cups of starter, I just added 1 cup of starter and kept everything else the same.  I hit the jackpot!  The bread would rise quickly and dome up above the bread pan and still kept its wonderful ability to stay fresh because of the benefical bacteria that kills mold.  It has a wonderful, tender quality with just a tiny bit of tang.  So, I think I have finally found what I was looking for.  So without further ado I will post the recipe:

 

Sourdough Bread Recipe
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of real butter
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3 eggs
1 cup sourdough starter
3 3/4 cups white unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsps of proofed bread yeast (put in a 1/4 cup warm water and let it foam up)

 

Combine milk and butter in a glass cup and heat in the microwave for about 1 minute 40 seconds, stir milk to get all the butter to melt.  Put 3 eggs into a small bowl and whip with a fork.  Add the eggs to the milk.  The cold eggs will bring down the temp of the milk (this mixture needs to be 110 degrees or lower or it will be too hot and kill the yeast in the starter).  Add 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  Put in a bigger bowl and add 1 cup of starter and the proofed yeast and mix it, then add 1 cup of whole wheat flour and one cup of white flour and mix. Put this mixture in a the bread machine pan, Then put the remaining 2 3/4 cups of flour in and set the machine on the dough cycle. Make sure the machine completely mixes the wet material with the flour.  Once it is finished put the dough into a greased glass bowl, cover with foil and let it sit in the fridge over night.  The next day take the dough out, flour the board and roll out each half to about 1/4 inch thickness and then roll up and place in bread pan that has been greased with butter.  This makes a nice even lump.  If I want to make cinnamon bread, I cover the dough after I have rolled it out with egg white and then sprinkle generously with cinnamon and then roll it up and put it in the bread pan.  Put pans in a cool oven with a bowl of hot water so that the dough can rise for an hour or so or place it on the counter with a heating pad on high under it and cover it with a damp cloth.  Make sure the cloth does not touch the dough.  I have a wire rack I put over the bread pans that holds the damp cloth and keeps it from touching the dough.  It should almost double in size.  Take out of the oven.  Heat the oven to 350 degrees and bake the bread for about 30 minutes or until dark brown on top.