Sure enough, by Saturday evening my new starter was bubbling away and filling up the jar I had brought it home in, just as Angela had said it would at Motherhouse's OSLSS Sourdough Starter Course. When I say new, I only mean new to me, Angela told us the starters we were taking home were descendants of a starter that began over 250 years ago!
Dr. Angela Greco, a verternarian, led this workshop for Motherhouse and will be leading two more Old Style Life Skills Series workshops this year - Jam Session and The Whey of Cheesemaking. For descriptions of these workshops, visit the Motherhouse web site. 
By the time you finish reading this post, you will see just how many ways you can use sourdough! This versatility is exactly what Angela set out to show us at the workshop. We made two different breads, pancakes and also pretzels at the workshop. In addition Angela brought a Sourdough Chocolate Cake she had made the day before to the workshop. This was the piece de resistance!
As families arrived for the workshop, equipped with bowls and jars and baking sheets, they settled in and then started grinding wheat berries, enough to yield the whole wheat flour needed for the two breads we were making at the workshop. Three different grain mills were set up for this purpose and everyone had a lot of fun doing this.
All the recipes we followed at the workshop were adapted from the Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin, "Baking with Sourdough". Everyone went home with a copy of this book which contains basic procedures for using sourdough as well as many recipes.
We mixed ingredients together to make a Sourdough Bread with Whole Wheat and a Molasses Rye Sourdough Bread.
We obtained the appropriate amount of sourdough sponge from Angela, started the night before. The sponge contained the starter, white flour, oil, honey, and warm water; making a sponge and allowing it to ferment is a necessary step if you are baking a kneaded bread. It is also an example of how using sourdough takes some planning ahead. For the workshop, Angela did all the planning i.e. giving the sourdough time to grow and work as a leavener. At home, using sourdough means planning and beginning the baking process further ahead of time than you would if you were using yeast or baking powder.
When we had the sourdough sponge mixed in, we stirred in enough white flour to make a dough we could handle. We formed the dough for each bread into a ball and covered with a damp cloth and let rest for about 15 minutes. Then, we kneaded until smooth and elastic.
And here are the two breads everyone took home for baking. There are few aromas more wonderful than the smell of home baked bread!
The Old Fashioned Pancakes were light, fluffy, and delicious! When I said so to Angela, she said "that's because they're alive..." and indeed using sourdough starter in the recipe makes a difference!
Here we are rolling and shaping pieces of the Sourdough Pretzel dough into long ropes, then twisting the ropes into pretzel shapes.
We brushed the pretzels with a mixture of beaten egg yolk and cream before covering with a damp cloth to let rise. After rising, we brushed the pretzels with the egg mixture again and sprinkled with salt. Notice all the different pretzel shapes!
The pretzels were baked for just 15 minutes in a preheated oven and allowed to cool before eating. They were absolutely delicious and although this is not the best photo, you can see what they were like.
Before leaving, Angela told us how to feed and keep a starter. A starter has to be fed with the same amounts of flour and water you take out on a weekly basis. You can use the starter to make bread, or give away to a friend, or discard. The idea is to maintain approximately the same amount of starter all the time, although it is also possible to expand your starter. Here's to the fun, challenge, and good taste of sourdough!
Sure enough, by Saturday evening my new starter was bubbling away and filling up the jar I had brought it home in, just as Angela had said it would at Motherhouse's OSLSS Sourdough Starter Course. When I say new, I only mean new to me, Angela told us the starters we were taking home were descendants of a starter that began over 250 years ago!
Dr. Angela Greco, a verternarian, led this workshop for Motherhouse and will be leading two more Old Style Life Skills Series workshops this year - Jam Session and The Whey of Cheesemaking. For descriptions of these workshops, visit the Motherhouse web site. 
By the time you finish reading this post, you will see just how many ways you can use sourdough! This versatility is exactly what Angela set out to show us at the workshop. We made two different breads, pancakes and also pretzels at the workshop. In addition Angela brought a Sourdough Chocolate Cake she had made the day before to the workshop. This was the piece de resistance!
As families arrived for the workshop, equipped with bowls and jars and baking sheets, they settled in and then started grinding wheat berries, enough to yield the whole wheat flour needed for the two breads we were making at the workshop. Three different grain mills were set up for this purpose and everyone had a lot of fun doing this.
All the recipes we followed at the workshop were adapted from the Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin, "Baking with Sourdough". Everyone went home with a copy of this book which contains basic procedures for using sourdough as well as many recipes.
We mixed ingredients together to make a Sourdough Bread with Whole Wheat and a Molasses Rye Sourdough Bread.
We obtained the appropriate amount of sourdough sponge from Angela, started the night before. The sponge contained the starter, white flour, oil, honey, and warm water; making a sponge and allowing it to ferment is a necessary step if you are baking a kneaded bread. It is also an example of how using sourdough takes some planning ahead. For the workshop, Angela did all the planning i.e. giving the sourdough time to grow and work as a leavener. At home, using sourdough means planning and beginning the baking process further ahead of time than you would if you were using yeast or baking powder.
When we had the sourdough sponge mixed in, we stirred in enough white flour to make a dough we could handle. We formed the dough for each bread into a ball and covered with a damp cloth and let rest for about 15 minutes. Then, we kneaded until smooth and elastic.
And here are the two breads everyone took home for baking. There are few aromas more wonderful than the smell of home baked bread!
The Old Fashioned Pancakes were light, fluffy, and delicious! When I said so to Angela, she said "that's because they're alive..." and indeed using sourdough starter in the recipe makes a difference!
Here we are rolling and shaping pieces of the Sourdough Pretzel dough into long ropes, then twisting the ropes into pretzel shapes.
We brushed the pretzels with a mixture of beaten egg yolk and cream before covering with a damp cloth to let rise. After rising, we brushed the pretzels with the egg mixture again and sprinkled with salt. Notice all the different pretzel shapes!
The pretzels were baked for just 15 minutes in a preheated oven and allowed to cool before eating. They were absolutely delicious and although this is not the best photo, you can see what they were like.
Before leaving, Angela told us how to feed and keep a starter. A starter has to be fed with the same amounts of flour and water you take out on a weekly basis. You can use the starter to make bread, or give away to a friend, or discard. The idea is to maintain approximately the same amount of starter all the time, although it is also possible to expand your starter. Here's to the fun, challenge, and good taste of sourdough!
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