Wild Yeast

I am proud and excited to join the international food blogging community in Menu for Hope. Led by Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim, this fundraising event to benefit the United Nations World Food Programme is a wonderful opportunity to donate to a most worthy cause, and have a chance at scores of fantastic food-related prizes while you’re at it.

Last year’s Menu for Hope raised over $60,000 (!) and this year’s event can surpass that huge success, with your participation. Proceeds from this campaign will go to the WFP’s school lunch program in Lesotho, in southern Africa.

Each $10 you donate to Menu for Hope between now and December 21 entitles you to one chance on your choice of item(s) from a dazzling array of prizes offered by food bloggers around the world. The more you donate, the more virtual raffle tickets you earn and the greater your chances of winning, so don’t hold back!

You may bid on any prize(s) you like, but I hope you’ll consider my offering, generously donated by Tom Douglas Restaurants in Seattle.

Item #UW16: A set of three signed cookbooks by Chef Douglas: Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen, Tom’s Big Dinners, and I Love Crab Cakes!

Bread bakers will love the Fig Brioches and Smoky Eggplant with Seed Bread. And what about Red Beet Ravioli with Fresh Corn Relish, Pesto Risotto Crab Cakes, and Cornmeal-Rosemary Cake With Lemon Glaze? These gorgeous autographed books will help you bring these and other elegant yet down-to-earth dishes to your own table. Yes, you want these books!

Now here’s what you do:
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I’m not sure when it started, but sometime after my husband and I were married, my mother came for Christmas and brought us a panettone for breakfast. Ever since then, this rich, sweet Italian bread has been a part of our Christmas breakfast (along with bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon). Last year, I decided to try making my own. And now it’s that time of year again!

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I normally maintain my sourdough starter at 100% hydration. That is, every feeding, and therefore the starter itself, consists of equal parts of flour and water, by weight. It has a batter-like consistency and is therefore a “liquid” starter.

But not every sourdough recipe calls for liquid starter; some call for a stiffer starter, often at 50% hydration (that is, the ratio of flour to water is 2:1). It’s easy to take a portion of liquid starter and convert it to a stiff one.

The easiest way to do this is to start with a small amount of liquid starter, say 10g, and feed it with 20 g of flour and 10 g of water. Then at every subsequent feeding, continue to feed with a flour:water ratio of 2:1.

The absolute amounts depend on feeding frequency, temperature, and individual starter characteristics. After a feeding, it should be able to at least double itself in several hours and hold there without collapsing until the next feeding. During cool winter months, I find feeding every 12 hours at a ratio of 1:2:1 (starter:flour:water by weight) works well. In the summer it might be, say, 1:3:1.5 or 1:4:2. But flour:water is always 2:1.

After a few feedings the new stiff starter is ready to go. Use it at its maximum volume, a few hours after it’s been fed.

Lewis of Table Bread tagged me for this, my first meme. Am I the only one who thought “meme” was pronounce “me-me,” as in “it’s all about me”?

My answers are completely ad lib, just the first things that popped into my head, in no particular order. If you asked me the same questions tomorrow, chances are my responses would be completely different.

What were you cooking/baking ten years ago?

I was a full-time graduate student with a long commute so I don’t think I was cooking or baking much of anything. Or if I was, I don’t remember it. The only thing I can say with 100% certainty is that I made candy cane cookies, because I know I’ve made those every holiday season for at least twenty years. Skipping them would lead to extreme domestic unrest.

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