This article concludes my series on how to make homemade sourdough bread.

In Part 1, we looked at what sourdough starter is and how you can use it to make a sponge. Part 2 discussed how to bake that sponge into fantastically chewy, dense loaves of bread.

Welcome to Part 3, which I think is the best part. This is the part where we eat the bread. Specifically, we layer it with 3 different cheeses, pile it high with prosciutto, then fry it in loads of butter for a crisp and filling grilled cheese sandwich.

Low fat? No way. A cheese-laden, calorie-busting comfort-food treat every now and then? Absolutely.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 3: Grilled Cheese with Prosciutto. OK, so I made the bread. What can I do with it?

The sourdough bread that I baked in Part 2 of this series is really versatile. You can can serve it with loads of cold butter as a hearty accompaniment to a warm winter meal. Or you can use it as an ingredient in other recipes.

The possibilities are kind of endless, but here are a handful of ideas of what to do with a great loaf of homemade (or store-bought) sourdough bread.

7 Ways to Use Sourdough Bread

1. Make a killer sandwich—One of my favorite combinations is bacon, baby spinach, crumbled feta, tomato, and fresh sprouts.

2. Start your day with a hearty breakfast—Toast it and slather it with butter and homemade jam or marmalade. Or use it to make a fried-egg-and-cheese sandwich.

3. Whip up some cheese-y garlic bread—Split it down the middle, spread it thickly with butter, fresh minced garlic, salt, and pepper—then sprinkle on a generous layer of grated Parmesan. Bake it in a 400 degree oven until the cheese is nicely browned.

4. Make homemade croutons—Cut the bread into cubes and toss them with a little olive oil, garlic, and thyme. Spread them on a sheet pan and bake in a 325 degree oven until golden brown.

5. Bake a bread pudding—Rip the bread into large-ish hunks and soak overnight in a custardy mixture of milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Bake at 350 degrees in a casserole dish until the custard is cooked and the top is browned.

6. Surprise brunch guests with sourdough French toast—Follow the basic method and recipe for my make-then-bake chocolate French toast. Just substitute cream or milk for the chocolate milk and your sourdough bread for the chocolate bread.

7. Grind a stale loaf up into bread crumbs—If your bread goes stale before you finish it, break it up into hunks and grind them into bread crumbs in a food processor. Season the crumbs and use them as a breading for flavorful fried shrimp or chicken fingers.

Or, last but not least, you can make grilled cheese

My favorite way, by far, is to use this bread for grilled cheese.

Now, I’ve never met a grilled cheese sandwich I didn’t like. That said, I firmly believe that not all grilled cheeses are created equal.

Everyone has their own special way to prepare grilled cheese. This is mine. (Tell me, tell me…what’s yours?)

My favorite kind of grilled cheese has a crisp, buttery crust. It oozes with several different kinds of cheeses. It definitely has a good ratio of bread to filling. Add any kind of pork product—especially bacon or prosciutto—and I might just lose my mind.

This sandwich is great on its own, or with a small salad and some of my quick and creamy tomato soup.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 3: Grilled Cheese with Prosciutto: A note on cheese

I used a combination of smoked gouda, sliced muenster, and American cheese this time. You can use any combination of cheeses you like. Just be sure to pick cheeses that melt well.

The instructions below are more method than recipe. Use as much cheese and prosciutto as you like.

Sourdough Grilled Cheese with Prosciutto

2 Tbls. butter
1 large hunk of sourdough bread
Smoked gouda
Sliced muenster cheese
American cheese
Sliced prosciutto
Kosher salt
Freshly cracked black pepper

Set a non-stick pan on the stove. Grab a heavy-bottomed frying pan (cast iron works well) with a very clean bottom and set it aside. If you have an electric panini press, you can totally use that instead.

Grilled Cheese with Prosciutto: Assemble your sandwich

Start with a large piece of sourdough bread. If you’re not using a French-style long loaf, use two thick slices of bread.

Slit it in half.

Scoop out some of the bread from the middle of each piece. Toss what you scoop, or stick it in the food processor for quick breadcrumbs you can use some other time.

I do this for two reasons. First, to create a little hollow that helps keep the fillings firmly inside my sandwich. Second, to keep a good balance between bread and filling.

Add two of your cheeses, covering each piece of bread completely.

Add the prosciutto to one side, using as much as you like.

I drop slices of the meat on in ribbons, so they don’t lay flat. This creates little pockets for the last cheese to melt into, and will help keep your sandwich together as you eat it.

Sprinkle with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste. You could also add a smidge of garlic powder, thyme, or rosemary here if you like.

Top the meat with your final cheese.

Put the non-meat piece of bread on top of the piece with the prosciutto.

Your sandwich should look about like this:

Grilled Cheese with Prosciutto: Fry your sandwich

Spread the top of your sandwich with 1 tablespoon of the butter, like this:

Put the other tablespoon of butter in your non-stick pan over medium heat to melt it.

Pick the pan up and tilt it around to coat the bottom with melted butter.

Put your sandwich in the frying pan, buttered side up.

Fry it for a few minutes, until the bottom develops a brown crust. Turn the heat down a little if it starts to smoke or burn.

Flip the sandwich over when the bottom is nice and brown.

Once you’ve flipped your sandwich, weight it down with a heavy-bottomed frying pan (or even a tea kettle full of water). I used a cast-iron panini press.

Cook for a few minutes, weighted down, until your sandwich has developed a brown crust on the bottom and the cheese is melted.

When it’s done, transfer your sandwich to a cutting board.

Slice it in half with a sharp knife.

Serve and enjoy!

***
Copyright 2008 The Hungry Mouse™/Jessica B. Konopa. All rights reserved.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Welcome to the second part of my sourdough baking series. This is the part where you make and bake amazing, nibble-worthy loaves of bread.

Yesterday, I made the sponge for my bread using my sourdough starter. I let it sit overnight, covered, to develop flavor. Today, I used that sponge to bake dense and chewy loaves of sourdough bread.

The method couldn’t be simpler. Basically, I added a little salt and more flour the the sponge, then kneaded it into a stiff dough and formed it into loaves. The dough pretty much does the rest all on its own.

Start this early in the day, when you don’t mind hanging around the house for a while. Sourdough can take its time to rise. The results, however, are well worth the wait.

Homemade Sourdough Bread

Sourdough sponge
2 cups flour
2 tsps. kosher salt

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 2: Use the sponge to make the dough

So when last we left our sponge, it was sitting on the counter, covered in plastic wrap.

After 12-24 hours, it will have a thin layer of liquid on its surface. This means that the sourdough starter has been hard at work all night, and the alcohol you see on the top of the sponge is the evidence.

Your sponge should be dappled with little air holes, like this:

Turn the sponge out into a large mixing bowl.

It should be smooth and creamy.

When you give it a sniff, it should have a pleasant, sour aroma.

Toss in the flour.

Mix the flour into the sponge with a wooden spoon to form a dough.

When most of the flour is incorporated and it’s getting hard to mix with a spoon, finish kneading it together with your hands in the bowl.

When all of the flour is incorporated, keep kneading the dough in the bowl until it’s smooth and elastic. It should be tacky, but not overly sticky.

Round the dough up into a plump little ball in the bowl.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 2: Set the dough aside for its first rise

Cover the bowl with a damp dishcloth or a few papertowels. Set it aside in a warm spot to rise until it’s doubled in size.

Depending on your particular starter and the temperature in your house, this could take anywhere from 2 to 4 hours. Be patient. It’s developing marvelous flavor.

When it’s about doubled in size, it should look like this:

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 2: Form the loaves and let them rise

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Sprinkle it with a little coarse cornmeal if you like. Set it aside while you deal with the dough.

Punch the dough down to smoosh the air out of it. Knead it a few times, then round it up into a smooth ball. Put the ball on a board. (Your dough should be tacky, but not sticky. If you do find that it’s sticking, toss a little flour underneath it.)

You’re ready to form your loaves. I made two long, French-style loaves of bread. If you prefer a different shape, you could totally make a large rustic boule, small rolls, sandwich bread, etc. You’ll just have to fidget around a little with your baking time and temperature to account for the shape you choose.

Divide the dough in half and round each piece up into a ball.

Stretch one piece of dough out to start to elongate it.

With your hands, work it into a long tube. When you have a basic tube shape, fold the dough over on itself a few times to firm up your loaf.

Do the same thing with the other ball of dough. Place both loaves onto your prepared sheet pan.

Set the pan in a warm place and let the loaves rise until they’ve about doubled in size. This took about 2 hours for me.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 2: Bake the bread

When the loaves have about doubled in size, they may still be a little flat. Don’t worry about that. They’ll puff up in the oven.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Fill an ovenproof pan half full with water and set it on the bottom rack of your oven. This will release steam and help improve your crust.

Right before you slide your loaves into the oven, brush their tops with cold water (again to help improve the crust). If you like, you can also cut a few diagonal slashes in the dough with a razor blade, for that signature french-loaf look.

Bake at 450 degrees for 25 minutes or so, until the bread is golden brown. When you tap the crust with a finger, it will be very hard (don’t worry…it will soften up after you remove it from the oven).

When it’s done, take your pan out of the oven, and slide the loaves onto a rack to cool.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, which will conclude my sourdough bread series with an ooey-gooey bang.

***
Copyright 2008 The Hungry Mouse™/Jessica B. Konopa. All rights reserved.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

There’s nothing like the smell of fresh baking bread. Make that bread sourdough, and I’m in heaven.

The sourdough recipe that I start below produces a moist, flavorful, and chewy bread that can stand toe-to-toe with some of the best loaves out there.

Tonight, I’ll talk a little bit about sourdough starter and how to make a sponge. Tomorrow, Part 2 of this article will show you how to turn that sponge into bread.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 1: It all starts with the starter

So, what gives sourdough bread its fabulous and unmistakable flavor? At the risk of oversimplifying, good sourdough bread starts with, well, a good starter. Literally.

A great sourdough starter is something to be coveted, protected, and shared with particularly deserving and baker-ly friends.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 1: OK, so what exactly is a sourdough starter?

A sourdough starter is a wild yeast that’s made a comfortable home for itself in a mixture of flour and water. As it ages, it ferments and develops a rich, complex flavor.

You use a little bit of this “starter”—in place of, or in addition to, conventional yeast—as a base for your sourdough bread dough. It makes your bread rise and gives it that great flavor.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 1: Wait, wild yeast?

Yep, wild yeast. You can’t see it, but yeast is all around us. In the air. On the surfaces of things we use every day.

Think about it. People have been baking leavened bread for, what? Six thousand years, maybe?

Before packaged yeast was available, folks would attract wild yeast with a mixture of flour and water, and keep it alive in that small bit of dough.

They’d use a little bit to make their loaves rise, then replace what they took with flour and water to keep their starter going.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 1: Where did you get yours?

My mom gave me a little jar of her sourdough starter—which she bought from King Arthur Flour years earlier—for Christmas in 2001.

According to King Arthur, this starter is a mixture of three different starters, one of which originated in New England about 250 years ago.

I’ve managed to keep it happy and alive all this time. I keep it in a large screw-top glass jar in the back of my fridge.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 1: Wait, that looks poisonous. What’s that brown stuff?

The dark layer on top is alcohol that’s a byproduct of the fermentation process. (Basically, the yeast eats the flour and gives off alcohol.)

This is just fine and gets stirred back in. In fact, it’s one of the things responsible for creating that great sour flavor.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 1: Starters can be regional

Different areas of the world are home to different strains of wild yeast with their own distinct flavors. This is part of the reason why San Francisco is famous for its inimitable sourdough bread.

While my starter came from my mother’s, I’m sure that mine has developed its own flavor over the years, as I’ve added my own flour and local water to the mix.

I’d wager that, even if we used the same recipe, sourdough bread made with my starter would taste distinctly different from bread made with my mom’s.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 1: OK, I’m sold. Where do I get some of this sourdough starter stuff?

I highly recommend King Arthur Flour’s sourdough starter. It’s $6.95 for one ounce. They also have a ton of good information on sourdough care and feeding.

Or of course, you could try to make your own.

I’m feeling brave. How do I go on a wild yeast hunt?

If you bake a fair amount—or if you’re just feeling intrepid—you can try your hand at catching and taming your very own wild yeast.

How to make your own sourdough starter

• Start with a very clean bowl. (Scald a ceramic bowl with boiling water to remove any traces of potentially harmful bacteria.)
• Add 1 cup of lukewarm water and 1 cup of flour.
• Cover the bowl with a clean dishtowel and set it aside on your counter.
• Check it in a day or two for bubbles, which are the telltale signs of life for a starter.
• If you see bubbles, it worked! Give the bowl a stir (again, with a very clean spoon), and cover it back up.
• Let it sit on the counter like this for a few days, until it develops a pleasant, sour smell.
• When it smells good, transfer it to a clean bowl or jar and stick it in the fridge til you’re ready to bake.
• To keep your starter happy, feed it periodically with equal parts flour and water (see notes on this at the end), and keep it cold and covered.

If you try this but it doesn’t work, you could give your pet a boost with a quarter teaspoon of conventional yeast.

If your starter starts to smell funky or look moldy or questionable in any way, chances are that something else found its way into your trap. Just toss the dough and try again.

How to use your starter to make sourdough bread

Now that I’ve explained a little bit about sourdough starter, here’s how I use mine to make bread. Start this the day before you want to bake.

Sponge for Sourdough Bread

1 cup of sourdough starter
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
3 cups of flour

If your sourdough starter has been sitting in the fridge for a while, it will have a layer of liquid on top of it. This can range in color from grayish to dark brown. That’s just fine.

Dip a very clean spoon or whisk into your starter and stir it slowly. The solid dough at the bottom should be creamy, like this:

When you’ve recombined the solids with the liquid, it should be about the consistency of pancake batter, like this:

Measure out one cup of starter.

Pour it into a medium-sized clean bowl.

Add the water.

Whisk them together til well combined.

Add the flour and stir well.

Your sponge will come together as a sticky, wet dough.

Cover your sponge with plastic wrap. Set it on the counter and let it stay there overnight.

How to Make Sourdough Bread, Part 1: Don’t forget to feed your starter

Whenever you use some of your starter, you need to replace what you took. This is commonly referred to as “feeding” your starter.

For every cup of starter you use, add 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water back to the jar.

Stir until the mixture is once again uniform.

Cover it loosely with plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter overnight, along with your sponge.

After a few hours, you’ll notice that the surface of the sponge will be pretty level, and dappled with small air holes. That’s a sure sign that your sourdough starter is hard at work.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my sourdough series tomorrow, when I use this sponge to bake a few loaves of bread.

***
Copyright 2008 The Hungry Mouse™/Jessica B. Konopa. All rights reserved.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.