Sourdough Baking 101: Mastering the Sourdough Starter

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Learning how to make sourdough breads and pastries starts with mastering the sourdough starter. In this class, we will be going through the complete process of making the starter from just two ingredients, flour and water. Welcome to this class. My name is Chef [inaudible], I'm a professionally trained baker and chef from Lokhandwala. I've been working with sourdough breads for more than a decade, and I want to share my knowledge and experience with you in this class. We start this lesson by learning the tools required to build the starter. Then we will go through the process of fitting the starter, tracking the progress on a daily basis for eight days, when the starter is finally ready to use to make sourdough bread. We will also go through some of the most frequently asked questions and common mistakes that you might face while making the starter. The class also comes with a bonus section on recipes, using the sourdough discard, such as sourdough whole grain muffins, pancakes, and naan bread. Make sure to download the recipe notes before you start the class, so you can follow the instructions easily at home. 2. Basics of Sourdough Starter: In this lesson, let's try to understand what a sourdough starter is and how it actually comes into existence. Think of this starter as basically naturally existing yeast present on the wheat grain. Just how you have yeast spores on grapes, and that's how you make wine. Similar to that, we have yeast spores on the wheat grain as well. When we actually mill that the grain, the spores are still there, but they're inactive. But when we actually hydrated the flour and we keep feeding it and discarding it, we actually cultivate the lactic acid bacteria as well as the yeast. The starter is basically a symbiotic association of the lactic acid bacteria and the yeast, and it's super, super good for your gut. It's really healthy, and you don't have any artificial yeast added to the recipes. It's a really, really good way to eat bread. Before the Industrial Revolution all the breads we're basically sourdough because we didn't have industrial yeast, and they were really good for our stomach. But as we kept developing, the fermentation time became smaller and smaller, that is how we started to develop this gluten allergies and intolerances to gluten because there wasn't enough fermentation. But once you make sourdough bread, it'll be much better your gut. Even if you have gluten intolerances, you'll definitely be able to eat it. Let's move on in the next lesson to learn how to actually make the sourdough starter. 3. Sourdough Starter: Day 1: This is day one, a sourdough starter. I'll just show you some equipment I like using and also some tips as far as how to make a good side starter. First off, always use a thermometer just to gauge the temperature of this starter. See you want the temperature to be anywhere between 24-27 degrees Celsius. If you can maintain it in that range, your starter will not become really acidic and very ferment really nicely. Secondly, I also like using this small silicone spatula. It's super useful just to scrape off all the bits when they get stuck in the container. For the container we use to make this starter. I'm just using like the syllable container and this is just some take plastic. You can also use glass containers, but I don't really like using them because it just takes too much time to clean them if something gets stuck on them. I like using plastic containers for that reason. The next one is that I like using whole meal flour or spelled flour when I start making this starter. Because this has higher organic content. That is why it's like more food for the yeast in a way. It gets a good head start to the starter. You can also use white flour that you don't necessarily need to have whole wheat or spelled. But if you can get this, that would be really nice. The first day we'll just do like a 50 grams flour and 50 grams water feeding. The water temperature as well. I'll just show you it's roughly about 27 degrees. That's perfect for me. Let's mix this together, put the container on the scale and make sure to it to zero. Whenever I mix this starter, I always like putting the liquid in first because it just makes it dissolve much better. Just put 50 grams of water. It's a little bit more so I'll just put some back. Perfect. That's 50 grams. Let's put 50 grams of flour as well. Perfect, that's about 100 grams. Just mix this together really bad like you don't want any flour bits which are not hydrated nicely. That's nicely mixed. I can't see any sort of dry flour bits there. That's really nice. Before I close this container, just clean it from this side, it's really nicely. You don't get any flour bits which gets stuck there. It keeps the container really clean. Perfect. Seal the container. But make sure to keep a little bit of gap open here that the starter can breath. If you're using any other container or if you're covering with plastic wrap make sure to just make some holes there. Because it's really important for the starter to breath because it is a living organism. It needs oxygen to thrive as well. That's it, keep this one open so that there's some amount of oxygen which goes through in. Also what I'm going to do is I'm just going to basically write the time I mixed this so that I'm going to feed it at the exact same time tomorrow as well. So just take a tape and I'm going to write down the time so it's 10:00 am. This the time we'll check on this tomorrow as well. I also like doing this when I basically label this starter off. I just put it here at the level of the starter just to see how much it rises. Right now we don't have enough in there to actually gauge it. But later on it'd be really nice to actually gauge how much it rises. Perfect, let's set this aside for one day and we'll have a look at this tomorrow. 4. Sourdough Starter: Day 2: It's Day 2 of our Sourdough Starter. Let's have a look at the starter first. It's risen slightly, but you can actually see it because there's such low quantity in it. Today we are going to feed 50 grams of water and 50 grams of white flour. From now on I'm just going to keep feeding white flour. Because white flour is really consistent. It's really stable and you can actually predict how it's going to ferment. I would suggest you use white flour. Let's put this on a scale, put it on there. That goes to zero, add 50 grams of water. [NOISE] Perfect and 50 grams of flour. Now I'm just going to mix this together really well so all the flour is combined nicely. [NOISE] I mix this for about 30 seconds and make sure you get a really smooth paste like this. That's really good consistency. Still put it back in. What I'm going to do is just scrape off all the sides so I don't have any bits sticking there. [NOISE] It keeps the container quite neat as well. [NOISE] Just level it off. Perfect. That's ready. [NOISE] Did put that yesterday and that's fine because it's still at that level. But as it keeps rising, I actually put it up just to check how much it's risen. Let's close this and we'll have a look at this tomorrow at the same, which is about 10:00 AM. I'm going to feed this at 10:00 AM every day. Now, you can decide the time, that's totally up to you when you feel comfortable. If you want to feel at night, do that at night, that's completely fine. Make sure to keep a little bit of open space as well. I'm just going to leave one of them open so it can breathe. Let's have a look at this tomorrow. 5. Sourdough Starter: Day 3: It's day three of our sourdough starter recipe. Let's have a look at this starter from yesterday. That looks so nice. It's actually risen so much. It's really surprising. I didn't expect it to rise so much. But sometimes in the initial stages of the starter, this tends to happen, but that doesn't mean that your starter is ready. Don't make that mistake because it needs to be more stable. Once it rises and falls in a more consistent manner, that is the only way we know that the starter is ready. Anyway, in this one today as well, I'm going to feed it 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water. Add the water and add the flour as well. Perfect. I'm going to mix this through very well, like yesterday. Usually, what happens is in the initial part of your starter, you'll see a lot of figures activity because the starter is growing and growing. Then once it starts to grow, it needs more food. What we have to do from tomorrow is we have to start discarding some of this starter and feeding it more so that you can get more food for the starter. Perfect. That looks really nice. It's mixed very nicely, you don't see any flour. Perfect. Like yesterday, make sure to clean the sides because we don't want any sort bits forming there. We want to keep our container very neat. Perfect. Level it off. I'm actually quite excited to see how it looks like tomorrow. The label is fine, it's still at that level, so it's fine. Let's close the lid. Make sure one of them is open, and let's have a look at it tomorrow at 10.00 AM, we'll do one more feeding. 6. Sourdough Starter: Day 4: It's therefore our first sourdough starter. Let's have a look at the starter now. You can see that it's almost doubled in size. Yesterday actually it almost tripled in size which is quite surprising. Your starter might take a little bit more time to ferment. That's completely fine. But when you see that it starts to double like that, that is the time we start discarding the starter. Now this can happen on Day 4 or even Day 6. Completely depends on your flour and as well as your weather conditions. Let's open it. You can see a lot of fermentation activity on the top. A lot of bubbles, it's a really nice sign that the starter is fermenting and we are on the right track. You smell the starter. If it smells slightly pungent or acidic is the right time to start discarding some of it because we want to lower the acidity in the starter. Also we want to increase the nutrition which the starter gets. If I feed this 50 grams of flour and water, that won't be enough. But if I discard some of it, it'll be much better to feed the remaining starter. What I like doing is keeping a glass container here. You can use any container that's completely fine. I'm going to discard almost all of the starter. Just leave about one tablespoon. [NOISE] I know some people like to just throw it in their compost bin or even sometimes they just like to throw the discard away. That's completely fine if you want to do that. But I want to actually show you how you can use the discard. [NOISE] I'll show you a few recipes as well. When you have that much about one tablespoon, I'm going to feed it 50 grams of water [NOISE] and 50 grams of flour. The starter discard I'm going to put it in the freezer and when this is completely full I'll take it out defrost it in the fridge. I'll show you what you can do with this discard. Just set it aside [NOISE] and just mix this really bad. [NOISE] Now every day we're going to be discarding the starter just so that we can lower the acidity and make our starter really vigorous. [NOISE] Make sure it's nicely mixed. What happens if you don't discard it? You'd have to feed it a lot more flour and a lot more water. You want to preserve that. You don't want to feed that much. You don't want to use that much flour. That is why discarding, is super important. Just basically clean the size. We don't have any dry bits. Keep it really neat. Just level it off. Perfect. Now we're going to check this tomorrow at 10:00 AM. You should be able to see nice vigorous activity tomorrow as well. Just close it. [NOISE] We'll feed this tomorrow now. I'll show you how it looks like. 7. Sourdough Starter: Day 5: Today is Day 5 of our sourdough starter recipe. Yesterday when I checked after 12 hours of feeding the starter and I was going to sleep, I saw that this starter had doubled in size. It was still here. When you see that your starter is doubling in size after 12 hours, it's time to start feeding it twice a day. This can happen to your starter maybe one or two days later, but that's completely fine. Whenever you see it double after 12 hours, we start discarding it and feeding it twice. Now, what happens if you don't see that doubling right now on Day 5, you just keep continuing with the discard and feeding it once a day. [NOISE] Perfect. Let's do this. [NOISE] Just like yesterday, we keep about one tablespoon. [NOISE] That starter looks so thick. That looks really nice, actually. [NOISE] Perfect. Keep about that much, [NOISE] about one tablespoon, [NOISE] add 50 grams of water, [NOISE] and 50 grams of white flour. [NOISE] I'm going to feed this again before I go to sleep with the same feeding ratio. [NOISE] When I feed it at night, I won't be discarding it. I'll just be feeding this one. We discard it every day. We don't discard it at night. [NOISE] Perfect. [NOISE] Make sure it's nicely combined. I'm going to clean the sides of the container. [NOISE] Just keep it really neat. [NOISE] Perfect. [NOISE] When I'm going to feed this starter at night, I will show you how it looks like, [NOISE] so you can, basically, gauge it much better when you make it at home as well. [NOISE] Let's close the lid, [NOISE] and keep one open. [NOISE] I'll show this to you at night, and then we'll feed it again. After 12 hours, let's have a look at the starter. [NOISE] See these fermentation bubbles on top, [NOISE] and also it's almost doubled in size [NOISE] since we last fed it. We can see these bubbles here as well. The starter is looking really strong now. I think it's about maybe two or three days away from being ready. It's still not completely ready because I know that it's not strong enough. We're going to feed it again about 50 grams of water, [NOISE] and 50 grams of flour. [NOISE] This time we won't be discarding anything. We'll be discarding it tomorrow morning. [NOISE] Let's mix it really well. [NOISE] Perfect. [NOISE] Let's see how this looks like in the morning tomorrow. [NOISE] 8. Sourdough Starter: Day 6: It's day 6 of our sourdough starter. Let's have a look at the starter first. You can see those small air bubbles on top and the starter also feels quite thick, and it's definitely getting there. If you see the texture, you see how thick that feels with a lot of air. Actually, when I felt it last night when I checked it when I woke up early morning, it had risen so much. But as it becomes more acid, it tends to deflate. It is rising really well. That is a really good sign. Today we'll be going to the same feeding, which we did yesterday. I'm going to discard almost all the starter but keep roughly about one tablespoon. [NOISE] Just keep about that much, it's roughly about one tablespoon. We are going to add 50 grams of water, [NOISE] and 50 grams of flour to this. We'll be doing the same feeding as yesterday. We'll feeding this at night as well before we go to sleep. Because now the starter is actually growing so much that it consumes a lot of food. Also, it's important to discard it just to lower the acidity of the starter. [NOISE] I think by tomorrow or the starter should be ready, because I can see that it's become more stable and it is rising quite well now. Those are really good signs that your starter is becoming more and more closer to getting ready. Just clean the sides as well. Perfect. You set this aside and you feed this at night. After 12 hours of feeding our starter let's have a look. [NOISE] That looks so nice. You can see all the fermentation bubbles on the top and it's looking much more active now. Today as well distribute the same feeding, 50 grams of water, and 50 grams of flour. [NOISE] I'm excited to see how this looks like tomorrow. This is definitely getting there. [NOISE] Now, what I wanted to say I'm feeding it after 12 hours. Let's say, for example, you forget to feed it, you can just feed it anytime, as long as you [NOISE] feed the starter it's completely fine. Do not exactly follow the timings I gave [NOISE] just based on whenever you're comfortable. [NOISE] That looks good. Let's set this aside and let's have a look how this looks like tomorrow morning. [NOISE] 9. Sourdough Starter: Day 7: It's day 7 of our Sourdough Starter. Let's have a look at the starter first. [NOISE] You see that fermentation activity on top. But I can see that it smells slightly acidic and also it feels a little bit tenor. That means that it's got a little bit over fermented, so from today, I will be increasing the amount of feeding I will be doing. Instead of 50 grams, you'll be feeding 100 grams of flour and 100 grams of water, and also I will change the feeding ratio from one is to three is to three to one is to five is to five. That'll be 20 grams of starter, 100 grams of flour, and 100 grams of water. Just discard most of the starter, but just keep 20 grams. You can measure it if you want but I just eyeball it because it's fine, you don't have to be exactly correct. But as long as you have approximately 20 grams, that's good. Perfect, that looks like it's about 20 grams. Going to add 100 grams of water, [NOISE], and 100 grams of flour. This will give more nutrition to the Sourdough culture and it will rise more, and also decrease the acidity of the culture as well, because we're getting really close for it to be ready. [NOISE] Just mix it really well. I think it should be ready in a couple of days. The way I can see the fermentation activity, it's getting more stable and it's getting super active as well. When you see that your starter is fermenting too fast, just increase the amount of feed you give it. Perfect. Just close the lid, and we'll have a look at this after about 12 hours. It's been 10 hours since we last met this starter. Let's have it or get it now. I think it is ready the way it looks like. It looks really nice. See, we started from here, so it's almost doubled in size. If I look at the texture, it looks really thick. That's exactly what I'm looking for, and am looking for a good Sourdough Starter. Lets check, see, it looks quite nice, actually. But what I'll do now is I'll discard most of this starter and I'll repeat the same feeding again, which says 20 grams of starter and 100 grams of water, and a 100 grams of flour. Take the starter and discard, almost all of it actually. That looks really nice. I think that's definitely ready. Perfect. Keep about that much. It's about one table spoon, and feed it 100 grams of water and a 100 grams of flour. [NOISE] I think by tomorrow, this will be ready for sure. We can start using it to make breads. Then I'll show you how we actually feed it before we start making the bread, and also how you store it and maintain the starter in the fridge. Tomorrow when I wake up, I'll just have a look at the starter and then I'll show you how it looks like. Perfect, just close the lid and set it aside. [NOISE] 10. Sourdough Starter: Day 8: It's day 8 of our sourdough starter. Our starter is finally ready because when I fed it last night, I actually checked just before I went to sleep, it rose so well. It is super active [NOISE] and it's also rising consistently. I'll show you the starter now. You see a lot of bubbles on top. Now this is a little bit over fermented because the starter was so vigorous last time that it actually rose and it fell down. But that's fine. That doesn't matter. What we have to actually observe is that if it doubles, then we feed it. If it's doing that really consistently, that is a good cue that the starter is ready. Today what I'll do is I'll discard almost all of it and feed it and put it in the fridge. [NOISE] Now, to preserve the starter, fridge is a really good place to put it if you're baking maybe once a week or twice a week. Discard almost all of it. Wow, that looks nice. Super vigorous. [NOISE] We keep about that much. It's roughly about 15 grams. Now I'm going to feed about 80 grams of water and 80 grams of flour. [NOISE] This can stay in the fridge for anywhere between 1 - 2 one without feeding. But I would recommend to feed it every once a week. When you have to feed it, you just take it out of the fridge, you discard almost all of the starter, and then you feed it the same way and you put it back in the fridge. It's basically you just discard almost of it, 15 grams with 80 grams flour and 80 grams water. [NOISE] The starter remains healthy and it doesn't get too acidic. [NOISE] If you want to use it now to bake bread, just leave it out with this feeding value between 10 - 12 hours. The moment it doubles and it rises really well, you can use it. Perfect. This goes in the fridge. [NOISE] Don't worry about the feeding cycle right now. I will explain that in more detail. When we actually make the recipes, I'll explain everything in detail. Just focus on how to make the starter properly and how to maintain it properly. Just close this, [NOISE] and put it in the fridge. [NOISE] This one as well, just close that and this goes in the freezer. When we have to use it, we'll defrost this in the fridge and then I'll show you how to use this as well. 11. Starter Maintainence: In this lesson, we'll be learning how we actually maintain the starter so it remains really healthy. At the bakery, what we do is we just keep the starter at room temperature because we're baking so often and we sometimes even feed it twice or thrice a day. But at home, because you won't be baking every day, you'd be baking maybe once or twice a week, we put the starter in the fridge so that it can self preserve and it doesn't get too acidic. Whenever you want to bake, we just take it out. We discard almost all of it and feed it basically on the ratio whenever you want to use it. For example, if I want to use it the next day, I'll just take it out at night. I will discard everything, keep 15 grams, and feed at 100 grams flour and 100 grams of water. This completely depends on your feeding ratio, whichever you want to follow. To maintain the starter, say, for example, you're not making bread every week, what you do is at least once a week, take the starter out of the fridge, discard almost all of it, keep 15 grams in your container, and feed it 80 grams of flour and 80 grams of water. It will keep the acidity of the starter low and also keep it really fresh. Whenever you want to take it out and bake it, your starter won't be really acidic. I hope this helps you understand how you can maintain the starter. If you have any questions, feel free to message me, or any clarifications you might have. 12. Starter FAQ: In this lesson, I'll be basically covering some common questions you might have and also some mistakes I see students make really often with this starter. The first one is that when you don't feed the starter for a long time, when you forget to feed it, you'll see this liquid forming on top of the starter and it will smell really acidic. That is actually called hooch. It's basically an alcohol which the starter releases. Now the starter is not spoiled, so don't throw it away. You can definitely use it. All you have to do is remove the liquid as well as remove most of this starter and feed it with a higher inoculation rate. What I mean by that is that say if you have 100 grams of starter with a liquid on top. You remove most it, keep like 15 grams and feed it 100 grams water and 100 grams flour. That's dilutes the acidity in the starter as well as develops it more and gives it more strength. The second question I get is that the starter is not rising and it's not fermenting at all. Now this can happen if you live in a really cold environment. You have to make sure that the starter is in a hot room or in the oven. With the oven switched off with a bowl of hot water so that it gets a nice and warm environment to ferment. Now the other reason this could happen is because your water, which you're using might be chlorinated. Now this can happen sometimes. What you have to do is you just basically need to put the water in a glass and just leave it outside overnight so the chlorine can evaporate and then you can use the water. The third reason this can happen is because your flour is bleached. Make sure to use organic flours because we want to give this starter as most nutrition as possible when we're feeding it. The third question I get is that what container should I use when I make the starter? Now I see a lot of people use glass containers, I personally prefer to use thick plastic containers. Sometimes cleaning glass containers can be really hard, especially when the starter dries on the surface. I personally prefer using plastic containers, but I would not recommend using steel containers because the starter or the acidity can react with the steel and the starter doesn't really like it. You can use either glass or plastic. The fourth question I usually get is, what is the difference between a starter and a levain? Basically, a levain is an offshoot of the starter. A mother starter is what we make and we keep feeding it. The levain is basically, you dig some amount from the mother starter and you feed that basically. They can be used interchangeably, but the levain is just an offshoot of your mother starter. Another question I get really often is, what kind of flour should I use or is there any specific type of flour which is really good to make starter? When we initially start making the starter we use a wholegrain flour just to give it a kickstart. But subsequently, I like feeding it all-purpose flour. Now you can use any flour you want. You can use rye, you can use s-pelt. But make sure if you're using a flour, which is of a higher organic content, especially one which is whole wheat or s-pelt or rye these tend to ferment faster, so you'll have to alter your feeding times. What I prefer doing is using all-purpose flour because it's super reliable and it just rises and falls down really consistently. Once you master that, you can actually experiment with different flours as well. But you can use any flour to make the sourdough starter. The final question I get most often is I forgot to feed the starter and it's just lying outside at room temperature for two weeks. What do I do? How do I recover that starter? Let's have a look how you can do it. I'll show you with an example. This is our sour dough starter which I just left outside for two weeks. I want to show you, it's really all fermented, you can see this layer of water on top. Now it hasn't got fungus yet, so I can actually recover this. What do you need to do is you just need to dig just about five grams from the bottom, just that much like the tiniest bit you can get and always use a new glass. Because the starter is extremely acidic and we don't want to use the old glass. The rest, I'm just going to throw it away. Now you cannot use this for discard recipes because this is way too acidic and it doesn't do pleasant at all. Now, what I'll do is, see this much? It's about five grams. I'll feed it 100 grams of water [NOISE] and 100 grams of flour. Basically, I'm just trying to dilute the acidity as well as give it a lot of food so that it just comes back to life. You might even need to feed it twice, totally up to you, you have to gauge the starter. For example, if after this feeding it's not alive, you just feed it one more time and definitely come back to life. Perfect. Just mix this together nicely. [NOISE] You should get this like paste consistency. That's pretty good. Now what I'm going to do, I'm just going to set this aside. I'll just cover this and just leave it for 24 hours. If you see that this starter is coming back to life, that's good. If it doesn't come to life, what you do is you repeat the same feeding again. You discard almost all of it, and feed it again with a 100 grams flour and 100 grams of water. Then it should definitely come back to life. I just wanted to show you that you don't need to throw away your starter. You can actually recover your starter which is just lying outside, which you think might be spoiled. Just cover it [NOISE] and set it aside. 13. Sourdough Discard Banana Muffins: In this lesson, we'll be learning how to make a banana muffins. So this is our starter which we had put in the freezer, the discard of this starter. So I basically took about 70 grams of the discard. I'm going to show you how it looks like. So I just defrosted this overnight in the fridge. So you can see some bubbles on the top and it's still quite thick. So I can use this. If you see like some black spots there, or if it smells too acidic, then you can't really use it. So this is perfectly good to use, now how much ever you want to use, you basically take it out in the fridge and you can put the rest back in the freezer. In the fridge, it can last up to one week. So I'm pretty sure that you won't be able to use so much in one week, so just take out as much as you want to use. So Just close this, and I'm going to show you the first recipe, which we are going to make with this starter. So this is a banana muffin, the ingredients are really simple. I'm going to use: some whole meal flour, almond flour and baking soda for my dry ingredients. I'm using almond flour because it just gives a nice moist texture. Because I'm not using all-purpose flour I'm using wholemeal flour, if you just use whole meal sometimes it can get a little bit dense, that's why the almond flour will help you. Now, whenever we use sourdough discard to give nice leavening to it, we always use baking soda. So even in the next recipe when we make pancakes, we'll be using baking soda. So the baking soda basically reacts with the acidic element of this starter and causes anything to rise, so if you make pancakes or muffins or even banana bread, Basically the baking soda will help to give that leavening in the muffins. For the sweetness, I'm going to use some brown sugar and honey and also the banana because it is naturally sweet. So brown sugar, I think it compliments the banana really well, It just brings out really deep flavors because it has molasses in it, also it gives it really moist texture to the muffin. For the fats, we're going to use butter and oil. So now I'm going to use a combination of both because butter gives it a really nice flavor as well as because we are going to cream the butter with the sugar. It'll give some sort of leavening to the muffins. Oil is purely for the moisture. For our binder, I'm going to use an egg, so the egg will give a lot of texture and basically bind everything together really well. For the add in, I'm going to use some chocolate, so I have this dropped some chocolate here, you can use walnuts, pecans, anything you'd like, you can even use oats, so totally up to you what you want to add, because the recipe is really forgiving whatever you want to add to it, you can go ahead and do that. For the banana, I'm going to use 180 grams of banana, now this is a really big one, it's about 180 grams, but if you're using smaller ones, make sure to measure them. So the first step when we make this is to actually preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, because that usually takes anywhere between 15 to 20 minutes. So set your oven to preheat, and then we'll just line our muffin tin and then we'll begin with the butter. After you've set your oven to preheat, I'll just line the muffin tin. What you do is you just spray some oil or you can even brush some butter. I've just got some sheets of baking paper, roughly about anywhere between 12 to 15 centimeters squared, that will work really well. This is about 12 centimeters squared. What you do is, you just take the center, and just press it in like that. This is got a precedent on the corners as well, this will give you like a really rustic sort of cafe style muffin, now this can be done without the baking paper as well you can just directly bake it on this, but I just like the look of it, how it looks back. So just line the rest of the baking pin in as well. So I have lined my muffin tin and this recipe makes about five muffins. Now, I'm going to put a lot of butter in it because I like bigger ones. But if you wanted to make smaller ones, you can make six muffins as well. Perfect, so let's move on to making the butter. So to make the butter, what we'll do is we'll cream the sugar and the butter. Make sure the butter, the egg, and all the other ingredients are at room temperature. Just makes it easier to combine, and it doesn't actually split when you mix everything together. Perfect, just take it off and add the brown sugar there. So this stage is called creaming and this will basically cause the muffin to get a really nice and light texture. So you can also use a machine to do this, I'll just do it with hand. You want to basically just combine the sugar and the butter together. After whisking for about two minutes. You'll see that it becomes slightly pale and it'd be nicely combined as well. So at this point you add your egg. Now whisk this for about a minute or two, as long as it's nicely combined as well. After mixing this for about two minutes once it's nicely combined, what I'll do is I'll just take a blender and I'll add the oil and the honey, this butter mixture, the sardo mixture, as well as the banana, and blend it together. I like using slightly like ripe banana for this, this gives better flavor. Just take off all the fiber from the banana, and this goes straight in. Now our sardo started discard as well, put that in. This method I find is quite fast and actually leads to like really nice and tender gum, so I like using this method. It's the oil and the honey as well. You can add your butter mixture, the cream butter mixture for our fat. So makes sure to add all the butter mixture. Now, I'm basically going to blend this into a smooth paste. When you get a smooth base like this, just like that, that's perfect. Now let's add our dry ingredients and then let's bake it. Consistency is really good. That's exactly what you want. Now if you'd like more chunky banana bits, just leave out the banana and blend everything else and then you can just crash the banana with a fork, and then for laddle later. That's completely up to you. Now we're going to see in the dry ingredients and do the wet ingredients. Just take a sieve, and this just helps everything to get mixed together really bad. All the baking soda bits will just get a fine texture. As well as you won't get any clumps of baking soda in the batter. Sieving it is optional, if you don't want to do it, that's completely fine. Your batter will still be good. But it's just a nice way to do it. Now I wanted to say that this batter can be used to make banana bread as well. Just double the recipe and then you can bake it in a little often as a banana bread. Perfect. Now because we're using admin flour, it won't completely get sieved. But I can see that all the baking soda has gone down the sieve, so that's great. Now what I'll do is I'll just add in all the tranquility in straightaway like that. Now what you need to do is mix it, but don't mix it too much. You want the batter to be slightly on the thicker side because we're making muffins. But you also want all the flour to be nicely combined in the wet ingredients. Just take your spatula. Just gently fold it like this. Just mix it like this. You want to make sure that all the flour is nicely combined in the batter. It already smells so nice. You can also add cinnamon to this. It'll also taste quite nice. Perfect. That batter looks quite good. See, that's quite thick. That's really good. Let's put this in our muffin tin. The most convenient way to put the batter in the baking sheet is to actually scoop it out with a table spoon. Just take it like that and scoop it out like this because the batter is quite thick, so I find this is the most convenient way to do it. I'll put about one tablespoon in each first, then I'll put a little bit of the chocolate chunks, and then I'll cover it with the remaining. I also like to fill it up to the top because I find this quite nice. If you want, you can add some blue to this. You can add some nuts as well, endless combinations. Let's add a little bit of the chocolate here. Just in the center. If you fold it up in the batter, sometimes it just lays down and it doesn't stay, that's why I like doing it like this. Now you just want to cover it, the rest. Just add one tablespoon again. Perfect. Now to finish it, just level it up a little bit. Spill a little bit more chocolate on top. This will basically melt in the oven. Just press it down slightly so that it doesn't burn. Since [inaudible] you don't have to be very exact with everything. What this sourdough starter basically does in this case, it just makes it really light, the muffin because it's already fermented, and it just gives a really nice texture to the muffin. Just finish the last one as well. Before I put it in the oven, I'll just sprinkle a little bit of brown sugar on top of the muffin because that just gives it a nice and crispy crust. Perfect. Just take a little bit of brown sugar and sprinkle it on the top. Just a tiny bit. This goes straight in the oven for anywhere between 30 - 40 minutes. Now because we have banana in it, anything with banana just takes long to cook because banana itself just takes its own time to cook. Just let's check after 30 minutes and if it's not done, then we'll probably give it another 10 minutes. After 30 minutes, let's have a look at the muffins. They've risen really well, super happy with how it looks like. Let's see if they're baked. Just put a skewer in the center. If it comes out clean, that means it's baked. I can see that the skewer is quite clean. If it goes inside, it just comes back without any resistance. That means the crust is set nicely and the crown is also baked. Now what I'm going to do is, I just let it be in a muffin tray for about 10 minutes. Then I'll take it out and put it on the cooling rack for it to cool down. These muffins, you need to cool down at least for two hours because you have banana in it, and that actually takes a lot of time to settle down and the moisture to evaporate from it. Let's have a look at this after 10 minutes then we'll take it out. It's been 10 minutes. Now, let's take it out of our muffin tin. It's really important to do this. Otherwise it gets quite soggy from the bottom if it stays too long in the muffin tin. Also I don't want to check it until it evaporate properly. Perfect. Let's cool this down for two hours and then we'll just cut the crown and just check how it looks like from the inside. Our muffins have been cooling down for two hours now. If you lift it, it shouldn't feel warm at wall. To finish this, I'm just going to sprinkle some icing sugar so that it looks quite nice for presentation. I'll just take a sieve and some icing sugar. Just finish it with that so it looks quite nice. To store these muffins, you can just put it in an airtight container for 3 - 4 days or you can actually just freeze it for three months. Whenever you want to eat it, you can just reheat it in the oven for about 10, 15 minutes, or you can just put it in the fridge for up to a week and just warm it in the oven for five,10 minutes before eating it. Let's check the crown now. See that, it's super soft. It looks quite nice. You've got chunks of chocolate inside. Let's taste it. That is surely delicious. Wow, it is super tasty. I hope you enjoyed this recipe and I really hope you make this at home. Such a good way to use the sourdough starter discard. 14. Sourdough Discard Pancakes: In this lesson, we'll be learning a second recipe with the sourdough discard. This is a pancake recipe. It's actually one of my favorite recipes to make and I make this really often with the discard I have. The ingredients are super simple. We have some plain flour, sourdough discard sugar, butter milk, eggs, and melted butter. This is the ingredients which go into wet mix and later we're going to add baking soda and baking powder. The process of making this is that you add all the ingredients together first. I'm going to put it in the fridge overnight and then tomorrow, just before I'm going to cook it, I'm going to add the leavening agents in it. The reason I do not add the baking soda and baking powder now is that if I add them now and I actually start cooking them, the pancake won't rise as much. It is always good to add that at the end. Now if you want to make this right now, you can also do that but I would suggest just putting it in the fridge overnight because you get a better flavor with the sourdough starter. Let's add the buttermilk to the sourdough discard. [NOISE] Let's add the egg as well. You can add the sugar as well. The melted butter. I'm just going to rinse this together really well. [NOISE] This is super simple recipe. You can add some flavor. This is where you can add some vanilla, you can add cinnamon, whatever you like. [NOISE] Once everything's nicely combined, I'm just going to add the flour in it. I just want to mix it together until it's combined. [NOISE] Perfect. That's good. [NOISE] You get this thick batter. The earliest you can use this batter is after fermenting it for 30 minutes. You can just add your baking powder and baking soda and you can cook it but I'm just going to put this in the fridge and then I cook this tomorrow. Just clean the sides first and I'm just going to wrap it with a plastic wrap and store it in the fridge. Let's have a look at this tomorrow. This is a pancake batter from yesterday and now we're going to add our leavening agents to it. I've got about half a teaspoon of baking soda and one teaspoon of baking powder. What you do is you just go straight in. [NOISE] If you feel like the batter is too thick, you can add about one tablespoon of milk just to adjust that a little bit. [NOISE] When you add the leavening agents, the baking soda will basically react with the acidity of the sourdough starter and also the buttermilk and actually expand. That is what is going to cause our pancakes to rise. [NOISE] I like to add them just before I'm going to cook them so I can get a really good rise in the batter. This consistency looks good. Let's start to cook them now. To cook the pancakes, I like to use a non-stick pan but you can also use a cast-iron pan. It's completely up to you. Also, I like to have a bowl of butter and a brush to basically brush the butter and seize in the pan, and also a little to basically little out the better. You can also use a cup. That's completely up to you. Also I'd like to keep a plate just so that I can put the pancakes in and also a spatula. I just make sure I have all these tools and then I start cooking them. To cook the pancakes, I actually like to keep the heat at medium low. I don't like to keep it too high because I want them to rise slowly as well as get good caramelization on the surface. Our pan has been heating for 10 seconds now. I'm just going to sizzle it with butter. [NOISE] You see that sizzling. That's a good time to add the pancake batter. Just let the pancakes spread on its own. You don't need to spread it. You see the batter is nice and sizzling on the side. That's perfect heat. You don't want it to be too hot and at the same time, you don't want to be too cold as well. The heat is at medium low. It's not super strong. You wanted to cook nice and slow and dries really nice. It's been about 40 seconds. I'm just going to check if it's cooked from the bottom. Super gentle with it, just check the color. It looks nice and golden. Now, I'm going to flip it. I like to do this in one go. Don't be scared. Just fold it like that in one go just like that. Perfect. You see that's beautiful color on the top. To finish it, I put a little of butter so that it doesn't dry out and it stays nice. I'm just going to cook it for like 15, 20 seconds on the other side, just so that it gets a nice color but not too long. It's been about 20 seconds on the other side. It's finally ready. Let's put this on a plate now. See that's so nice and fluffy. That feels very good. Let's cook the other pancakes as well. Because of the sourdough culture, we get these nice and open the holes here. Just put a little bit more butter when you flip the pancake, so it doesn't dry out. It looks really nice. These are final pancakes. The recipe makes about four large pancakes and you can easily double or triple the recipe based on how much ever you want to make. You can also store the batter in the fridge for up to 3-4 days and you can just take out half and put the leavening agent and cook it and you can cook the other half whenever you like. The recipe is really for giving and also the culture is really tasty as well. To finish it, I just put a little bit of butter on top. You can put as much as you want. It'll keep melting on its own. I also like to finish it with a little bit of maple syrup. You can even put whip cream, you can put some strawberries, whatever you like. Just put as much as you like. Perfect. It looks so beautiful. Let's cut a slice and see how it looks like. Just get it from the center. That feels extremely fluffy. It's happening. I'm excited to taste it. You see that? That is so fluffy and nice and super easy to digest as well because of the sourdough discard. It just breaks down all the starch. Let's taste this. See that? Looks nice. It is so delicious. It just feels so light because of the sourdough culture and also it's not really sweet. Can you see those holes there? It's because of the culture and just reacts with the living agents and makes it so light and airy and so easy to digest as well. This is honestly one of my favorite recipes to make with the sourdough discard and it's so easy to make as well. I hope you make this at home. 15. Sourdough Discard Naan: In this recipe, we'll be learning how to make sourdough naan. This is a recipe which I'm going to use my sourdough discard as a replacement for yogurt. This is not going to be giving too much of leavening to a naan bread. We're going to use some yeast in the recipe. Now, if you're using a discard of a really active sourdough, you don't need to use yeast. But since my sourdough isn't that active, I'm going to use a little bit of yeast in the dough. Before mixing the dough, let's just briefly go over the ingredients we are going to use. For the flour, I'm using all-purpose flour. You can also use bread flour here. Usually, naan bread is really good if you use any white flour because you get a softer dough in that case. I'm also using yogurt. I'm not using any water in this recipe. It's just yogurt and the sourdough discard for our liquids. For our leavening, we're going to use a little bit of yeast. This is just about two grams. There's really less amount of yeast. To control the fermentation, we're going to use a little bit of salt as well. To put this dough together, you first put the liquids in a bowl, take your sourdough discard and add the yogurt to it. Also, when I make this dough, what I like doing is just putting the discard as well as the yogurt just outside for a few hours, so that they can come to room temperature. Because if you mix them and they're cold, the dough ferments really slowly. It's always good to get it to temperature and then add the flour in the mix. Just add the flour. Add the salt as well, and add yeast. Now, just mix together. This dough is not really super wet. It's really easy to handle it and super forgiving as well. Like sometimes I just make this dough and just put it in the fridge that last up to 3-4 days so you can just use it whenever you want from the fridge, just draw it into a bowl and cook a naan, super convenient in that case. A really good way to use a sourdough discard. When you mix this dough, if you feel like it's still too dry, you can add a little bit of water to it. If you want, you can actually mix this dough in a stand mixer as well, you don't really need to knead it with hand, but I'll just show it to you how it looks like when you knead it with hand just in case you don't have a stand mixer at home. I have been mixing the dough for about a minute now. When you can see that the bowl is clean, we start kneading it. I'm just going to knead it for anywhere between 3-5 minutes until the dough comes together. This doesn't have to be extremely smooth. Just make sure that all the flour is nicely hydrated. I have been kneading the dough for about two minutes now. We can see that it started to come together. But it's still not like really smooth, so I keep kneading it for another two minutes. Then I think it should be ready. After four minutes of kneading, when your dough comes together instead not super smooth, that's fine. We will just give it a turn after 30 minutes. Then it will become very smooth, just make it into a round ball. You're going to ferment this for about 30 minutes and then we'll give it our first turn. Cover the bowl with a wet cloth and set it aside for 30 minutes. It's been 30 minutes. Let's have a look at the dough. See it's risen slightly. Now, I'm just going to give it a few turns. Just do that without turning the dough. Perfect. Now, it becomes nice and smooth. That looks really good. Let's just set this aside in a bowl. We're going to ferment this for anywhere between 1-3 hours. You just wanted it to double in size. Let's have a look at the dough after one hour. It's been one hour, and let's have a look at the dough now. You see it's almost doubled in size. It feels quite light and airy. This is perfect for me. I'll stop the fermentation at this point. What I'll do is I just take maybe one-fourth of the dough just to show you how to cook it. The remaining, I'll just put it back in the fridge. In the fridge, you can basically keep it for 3-4 days. Whenever you want to cook it straight from the fridge, you just basically take out as much as you need, shape it into round ball, then you can cook it on the stove. The dough is super forgiving and the flatbread is also quite easy to make. Let's learn how to make the naan bread. Take the dough out of the bowl just like that. Just take about one-fourth of it. The rest, what I'm going to do is just shape it into a ball. Just store it in the fridge. The remaining one. Let's basically cut this into three pieces. Depending on the size you want, 3-4 pieces is good. You can weigh them if you like. But I'm just going to eyeball it. Then you shape it into a round ball. Make sure that it's seated nicely, and do the same for the remaining ones as well. After you shaped the doughballs, we going to do a second proof so that the dough can relax and then we stretch it out and cook it on a cast iron pan. Just cover it with a wet cloth and set it aside for anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour. Our dough has been fermenting for 30 minutes now. You can see that it's risen slightly and become really soft. Now, what I'm going to do is roll it with a rolling pan and cook it on my cast iron griddle. I'll get the cast iron griddle and it's really hot so that you can basically cook it at a really high temperature. I've switched on the flame at really high. This gets really hot, so just keep it for another one or two minutes. Also make sure that you have a bowl with some butter and also a brush just to brush them like that when it's cooking. While this is pre-heating, let's roll the flatbread. To roll the flatbread, put a little bit of flour on your rolling pan as well so it doesn't stick to your rolling pan and just flatten it out like that. I like to keep it in an oval shape. You don't want to get it too thin, but it shouldn't be too thick either. Something like this. that's good. Perfect. That looks good. Let's put this on the cast iron griddle. Let's put it. Now, I know like some people, what they do is they cook it on one side and actually tilt the pan. Make like a tandoor thing but with the cast iron like I've seen that it doesn't actually stick to my cast iron, it always falls down. I like doing it like this. Always wait for the bubbles to form here. The bubbles are a good sign that the dough is quite nicely fermented. Once you start seeing some bubbles, I'm just going to flip the dough. You have to do it about 10-15 seconds on the first side. Put some butter. Give it like another 10 seconds on that side and flip again. Perfect. See that's really light and that's rising really well. Put a little bit more butter here. As our dough is nicely fermented, so you get these set of spots and it's rising nicely. Just another 5-10 seconds here. I'm going to flip the dough again. That's really good. Perfect. I'm going to put it on a plate. Let's put it at a bit of butter to finish. Let this cool down. Let's check the first one we made. See how soft that is. That's really nice. You can see it I can just opens up like that. That's really good. Super soft. We want exactly like this. That taste so nice and light. If you're making curries or something, this is super nice to make. I hope you enjoyed the recipe and this is such a nice way to use this sourdough discard. I hope you make this as well at home. 16. Conclusion and Thank you : We finally reach the end of this class and I'm sure that you'll be able to make a really nice sourdough starter at home. Throughout the process, I'm sure you've learned a lot of different techniques and if you have any questions, feel free to message me anytime and I will get back to you for sure. So make sure to check out the next class in the series in which we'll be using this sourdough starter and developing recipes in order to making a loaf of bread. That will really help you as well. So I'm super excited to see you in the next class.