Day 3 « In Our Kitchen

Day 3

Today is a little complicated, just because there are various things going on. By the end, you will have your sourdough bread sponge and a bowl of sourdough that will be used to make pancakes. If you don’t want to make the pancakes (and who wouldn’t?!?), simply feed the sourdough with one half cup water and one half cup flour and put it into the frige. Then follow through with the spelt berries processing. –

Approximate Time Required: 30 minutes maximum. You could get it done a lot faster without children around or underfoot. But in my house, it seems they could care less about days 1 and 2, but flock to me on days 3 and 4. I think it something about Mama having hands in dough that attracts them.

Ingredients Needed:

Sprouted Spelt Berries (see prvious posts)

Sourdough mixture (see previous posts)

Flour – I use spelt; I had originally purchased the starter as rye but have since converted it to spelt. It was suggested to me that I gradually decrease the amount of rye flour and increase the amount of spelt when transferring over. I did this and have been quite happy with my spelt sourdough starter. So, you can change any sourdough mixture by doing the same.

Filtered Water

Food Processor

Two Large Bowls

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Here I have my sprouted spelt berries (I rinsed them and drained them two or three times until the sprouts were showing on all the berries. I did this about every 8-12 hours, basically morning and evening. The sprouts do not need to be long. My experience is that the shorter the better, but they should at least be there.) Anyway, you have you spelt berries, sourdough starter (fed according to previous directions), two large empty bowls, flour and food processor. (And spatula/spoons/measuring cups).

Take the SOURDOUGH from its bowl and transfer it to another (larger) bowl. Put dirty bowl in sink and out of the way.

Put the sprouted spelt berries into the food processor. Put empty spelt berry container in the sink and out of the way.

To the food processor with sprouted spelt berries, add one half (0.5) cup of sourdough starter.

To food processor with sprouted spelt berries, add some water. The more you add, the more flour you’ll need later. I only add about one half (0.5) cup.

Turn on the food processor and let it run while you do the following…

Pancake Bowl: To SOURDOUGH, add two and one half (2.5) cups of flour and one a one half (1.5) cups of filtered water.

Stir SOURDOUGH well. Set lid on top – it should NOT be air-tight. Set aside.

Back to the food processor…

Transfer the sprouted spelt berries, sourdough and water mixture to the other empty bowl you have.

Add to the bowl (with spelt berry mixture) about 2 tbsp. of olive oil (or oil of your choice).

Add flour. The amount will depend on how much water you added. I typically add about one and one half to two (1.5-2) cups. Then, I stir it with a spoon, until it is too hard to do so.

Then, I use my hands. I used to use my food processor through this stage, but stopped because I prefer to feel the dough myself.

When “done” the dough should still be tacky. It doesn’t look smooth or anything like that. This is what mine looks like. If you touch it, it is very moist, yet.

Now, I cover it (NOT air-tight) and let it sit overnight. It stays on the countertop, next to the other bowl with the sourdough.

Part 1: Making Pancakes and Storing Sourdough Starter

Ingredients Needed:

Sourdough/Pancake bowl (from previous posts)

Flour (1/2 cup)

Filtered Water

Empty Bowl (small)

Eggs

Oil

Baking Soda

Skillet(s)

Your Favorite Pancake Topping(s)

Here is a closer photo of the bubbles.

Remove one half cup of sourdough to empty starter bowl. Feed it with one half cup flour and one half cup filtered water.

Place lid on gently (it should NOT be air-tight) and place in frige until you are ready to start the whole process from the beginning.

Back to the large bowl…

Add eggs (we use 5), a few tablespoons of oil (we use about 2 tbsps. of olive oil) and about 1 tsp. of baking soda. You may need to add a bit of water to thin out the mixture. Sometimes we do; sometimes we don’t.

Pour mix onto heated, oiled skillet(s) and heat accordingly. Flip and brown other side. We have four pancakes being browned at one time on four different cast iron skillets - like this: