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I bought the book Alaska Sourdough a few months ago, but hadn’t yet had a chance to try any of the recipes. This is a great book for using sourdough in an average home by an average cook (if you’re looking for more artisan style sourdough recipes, I highly recommend Breads from La Brea Bakery). Recipes range from suggestions on how to use your sourdough and leftovers (from leftover rice fritters to muffins using leftover oatmeal from breakfast), a few basic bread recipes, and a large quantity of recipes for biscuits, muffins, pancakes and waffles, along with a few fun recipes for simple special occasion cakes; even Baked Alaska! The recipes are written by hand in the book and aren’t too detailed, they assume that you know what you are doing, but the book is quaint with lots of stories from the pioneer Alaskans and, as a former Alaskan, I can assure you that I have seen recipes like these in many a homesteaders cabin; they are authentically Alaskan!
I’m excited to share with you the first recipe I’ve tried out of the book! Unfortunately, I already adapted it to use what I had, but I did use techniques from other recipes in the book to compensate! I adapted it because I simply did not have the 4 cups of starter the original recipe required; I had fed my starter the day before with the plan to make bread, but hadn’t yet chosen a recipe so didn’t have quite enough made up! The original recipe (verbatim from the book) will be printed at the bottom of the post.
This bread has a gorgeous crunchy, crispy crust with a soft, yet chewy interior. It just screams to be dunked in a bowl of hot soup or served up with some butter and honey. It is fragrant and perfectly sourdough.
Disclaimer: This isn’t a “true” potato bread in that it only contains potato water (the water remaining after boiling potatoes) rather than any actual potato, but the water adds a soft silkiness to the dough, plus extra nutrients!
Sourdough Potato Bread
adapted from Alaska Sourdough
makes one loaf
1 Cup sourdough starter
2-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (equivalent to one package of yeast)
1 Cup warm potato water
1 Tablespoon honey
Mix and allow to bloom, about five minutes.
Add:
3 Tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2-1/2 cups flour
Mix in bowl and then allow to double in bulk in a warm place.
(I made two batches of this recipe, one using whole wheat starter and white whole wheat flour, and one using white starter and white flour. Pictures below of what the two bowls looked like after this step; the wheat had already absorbed almost all of the liquid and had formed a ball already looking like dough. The white was very slack, wet and loose. I think the original recipe must be for a white bread, as I had to add far less flour to the whole wheat version. Details below.)
Once doubled, add up to 2-1/2 cups of additional flour to the mixture and scrape out onto a floured surface. Knead until dough is easy to handle, smooth and elastic, about five to eight minutes.
(It took about 2 hours for my white dough to double, and I added about 2 cups of flour. My wheat dough took closer to 2-1/2 hours to rise and only took in 1/2 cup of flour. Next time I might increase the amount of potato water by 1/2 cup to the wheat dough if only to make a slightly larger loaf.)
Place dough in greased bowl and cover. Allow to raise in warm place until doubled in bulk.
Once doubled, knead down and form into loaves, either in a loaf pan or free form. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk.
(I made my loaves free form on a piece of parchment paper placed on the back of a cookie sheet and baked them on my new baking stone! I don’t yet have a peel for the stone (it is on my Christmas list!) so find that I can scoot the parchment paper directly onto the hot stone from the back of the pan on it’s own!)
Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. If using a baking stone, allow stone to pre-heat in oven for at least 30 minutes prior to baking.
Once loaves are ready and oven and stone are hot, slash tops of loaves and place quickly in oven. Bake at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for 45 minutes longer.
Sourdough Bread
Original recipe from Alaska Sourdough
4 cups Sourdough
2 cups warm potato water
1/2 cup sugar
6 Tablespoons cooking oil
1 teaspoon salt
10 cups flour - approximately
Make soft sponge mixing the sourdough, sugar, water and oil. Add half the flour. Set in warm place to double in bulk. Add remainder of flour to make dough that is easy to handle, smooth and elastic. Place in greased bowl. Cover. Let raise in warm place until double in bulk. Knead down. Let raise to double bulk. Form into loaves or roll our 1/4” thick. Roll length wise and place on cookie sheet. Slash. Bake 500 degrees for 10 minutes, then 400 degrees for 45 minutes.
Posted by Sarah
For many years, I kept a sour dough starter alive - and made sour dough pancakes every weekend. One time, when we moved into a new neighborhood, I went door to door, and invited every neighbor for two blocks for Sunday Brunch - so we could all get to know each other. I served baked ham and sourdough pancakes to 80+ people that weekend, and some of the guests that met for the first time that day, are still good friends, over 30 years later!