and everything nice

Since I’ve been keeping my sourdough starter on my counter lately, I’ve had more discard to use, and I must say that one of my favorite recipes is King Arthur’s Sourdough cracker recipe. We love these crackers, and I daresay that my dear husband is addicted to them. I make these crackers exactly as the recipe describes, but I have a few tips that will perhaps make your sourdough cracker adventure more successful.

For one, I would recommend dividing the dough into three pieces, as opposed to two pieces.

Why? Because then it’s easier to roll the dough out very thin, which makes for a better cracker experience… thinner, crispier…

Roll it out nice and thin… thinner than you think is necessary.

It’s also nice to have three pieces of dough so you can make a variety of crackers with just one batch. Some with just salt sprinkled on top, and then maybe some with sesame seeds, and my latest favorite, sesame seeds and fennel.

Sesame fennel crackers.

As long as we’re talking about making different kinds of crackers, there’s an easy way to do that as well. You have your basic dough recipe (I always put Italian herbs in the dough), and then when you are about half way through rolling the dough out, add seeds and other other herbs, and then continue to roll out the dough. If you wait until the dough is completely rolled out, the add-ins won’t stick as well, and will pop off the crackers after they are baked.

It’s about at this stage that you sprinkle with add-ins.

Now, here’s a nit-picky detail, but for me it’s important. The crackers are great with salt sprinkled on top, but sometimes when I sprinkle the salt, I don’t do the greatest job of sprinkling evenly, so some crackers are too salty, while others are not salty enough. So here’s my solution. After you have done all of your rolling out, including add-ins, and have brushed the top of the cracker dough with olive oil, the next thing you will do is cut the cracker dough into squares using a pastry cutter or a pizza cutter. Then sprinkle the salt, putting a little bit in each square. This may sound too fussy, but I like each cracker to be as good as the last.

Sprinkle the salt now. A little bit in each square.

I would also recommend pulling the tray out of the oven and removing any crackers along the edges that have browned and are done.

Remove those outer ones!

Put those ones on a cooling rack, then separate the ones that are remaining and put the tray back into the oven to bake. As with most things in the oven, the outer edge bakes quicker, so if you want to have more evenly baked crackers, you need to do a little bit of cracker social distancing management.

These need to go back into the oven.

Here are some nicely baked crackers!

Rustic and delicious.

Another tip? When you make the dough and wrap the pieces and place in the fridge, you can leave the dough in the fridge for a lot longer than two hours (recipe says for at least 30 minutes and up to two hours). I have left the dough in the fridge for as long as two days, and the crackers come out wonderfully. This, to me, is very helpful, because sometimes I like to make the dough when my jar of discard is overflowing, but I don’t really have time to make and bake the crackers that same day. And I suspect that the longer the dough rests in the fridge, the better the sourdough flavor.

Sourdough Crackers

(from the King Arthur recipe)

• 227 grams sourdough discard
• 113 grams King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 4 Tablespoons (57 grams) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 Tablespoons dried herbs of your choice (optional – we love using Italian herbs)
• Olive Oil (for brushing)
• Kosher salt (for sprinkling)

1. Mix the discard, flour, salt, butter and herbs until you have a smooth, cohesive dough with all ingredients well distributed. Use your hand and knead the dough in the bowl to be sure everything is well combined.
2. Divide dough into three equal portions. Make each one into a flat rectangle, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, and as long as 2 days.
3. When ready to make the crackers, preheat the oven to 350° and take one dough packet out of the fridge. Lightly flour a piece of parchment paper, the dough, and your rolling pin.
4. Roll out the dough on the floured parchment as evenly thin as you possibly can – to about 1/16 of an inch. If you are using add-ins, stop when you are about halfway done with the rolling out. Sprinkle on any seeds or herbs or anything else you’d like to add. Continue to roll until dough is nice and thin.
5. Brush with olive oil. Cut crackers into squares any size you like, using a pastry cutter or a pizza cutter. Poke a few holes in each cracker with a fork. Sprinkle a bit of kosher salt on each square.
6. Slide the parchment with the cracker dough onto a cookie sheet (a rimless cookie sheet makes this easy, but a regular cookie sheet will work as well. Place on the middle rack in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Keep and eye on the crackers, and when it looks like the edge crackers are browned (about halfway through the bake time), pull the cookie sheet out of the oven. Remove the browned edge crackers to a cooling rack, then separate the remaining crackers and spread them out on the cookie sheet. Put back in the oven and continue to bake until the rest of the crackers are browned to your liking. While the crackers are baking, you can be working on the next portion of dough.
7. When crackers are browned, let them cool on the cooling rack. Store in an airtight container. Enjoy!

Sourdough discard, flour, herbs, salt, and butter.

Nice smooth dough.

Three little packets.

Getting ready to roll.

This is the halfway mark, which is a good time for add-ins.

Nice and thin!

Brush with olive oil.

Cut squares and sprinkle with salt.

Dock with fork.

Partway through the bake, remove the outer crackers to cool.

Separate the crackers and put back in to bake.

Nice even bake!

And my favorite, sesame fennel crackers.

I have now been making sourdough bread on a regular basis for about 8 months?? How did that happen? I wasn’t initially excited about sourdough, because I associated it with the super sour loaves you get at chowder houses and such. I couldn’t imagine having that on a regular basis. But as it turns out, the sour flavor can actually be quite subtle and lovely. We have become accustomed to it, and enjoy it very much.

Having fun with different shaped loaves. Why not?

I experiment with sourdough recipes all the time. And not just recipes. Shapes, scoring, you name it. It’s just fun. Soooooo, back in August I posted about how to use the “scrapings” method for starter maintenance. This method is perfect for you if you aren’t going to bake very often, and you don’t want to have discard leftover. As for me, I have started baking with my starter often enough that I want it at the ready whenever the fancy strikes. And I am happy to use my discard to make other things, like these yummy whole wheat sourdough crackers.

So yes, I have become one of those people that keeps their sourdough starter in a jar on their counter and feeds it once a day. How did that happen again? It’s not a big deal though. I feed it only a small amount, and the whole routine only takes about ten minutes. A small price to pay for my own personal unlimited wild yeast supply. So here’s how I do it.

I have two 16 ounce jars with straight sides (for easy access and cleanup) and lids that can sit loosely atop the jars or be screwed on tightly. The jars weigh the same, which can be helpful. In the picture below, you see on the left a jar with starter in it. This starter has not been fed, so it is “hungry”.

I place the clean jar on my kitchen scale and pour 40 grams of the unfed starter into the clean jar.

I then zero out the scale and pour in 40 grams of room temperature water. I prefer using water from our Britta Filter water pitcher, but tap water is fine.

Next I zero out the scale and add the flour. 40 grams. I like a combination of rye flour (6 grams) and King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose flour (34 grams)  in my starter for liveliness and flavor, but really, 40 grams of any decent unbleached all-purpose flour will do.

Then mix. I have a long narrow one-piece silicone spatula that makes mixing easy, and the spatula is easy to clean also, so I highly recommend getting one. Scrape down the sides of the jar so you can see what’s going on in there.

I like to place a rubber band at the level of the starter so I can see how much it grows. Usually a starter will triple in size when it is at its peak, and will stay at that level for an hour or two before it starts to collapse. My starter is a 100% hydration starter, which means that it has the same amount of water as flour. It usually takes my starter about six hours to reach its peak. It is when it is at its peak that the starter will be the most effective in your sourdough bread recipes. (I know, I know, TL;DR). Anyway, I place the lid very loosely on the jar and keep it in an out-of-the-way spot in my kitchen. If I want to bake, I know that my starter will be ready in about six hours. If I don’t want to bake, I can just feed the beast again the next day when I feel like it. Here’s what it looks like after a couple of hours.

It’s always exciting to see the starter begin to grow.

Here is what it looks like when it’s ready to go.

Tripled in size, bubbly and ready to go!

And now you may ask, what do I do with the leftover starter, otherwise known as the discard? Well, you may want to have a third jar. Whenever you have leftover starter, just pour into your “discard” jar. So now it’s starting (starting, hehe… no pun intended) to get confusing. Here’s how I keep it straight. The rubber band only goes on the jar of the starter that I am feeding or I am going to feed. There is a jar that I keep in the fridge that is just for discard… my leftover starter. In the photo below, the middle jar that is full has discard in it from a week or two of sourdough feedings. The jar on the left has the leftover starter, which I am about to pour into the discard jar. The jar in the background on the far right is the starter that I just fed. Whew.

Background jar = just fed starter. Jar on left = leftover starter. Jar in the middle = discard.

When I accumulate enough discard, I usually make sourdough crackers, because they are SO so good.

Whole wheat flour, herbs, butter, and a whole lot of discard!

But I’ve gotten completely off track. I just want you to envision a positive outcome for all of that discard. And there really isn’t that much discard. Sometimes I decide to just do a 30/30/30 starter, which makes 90 grams of starter (obvi). My regular sourdough loaf recipe only calls for 50 grams of starter, and so I would have 40 grams of starter leftover. But you see, I would be cutting things very close, because there is a tiny bit of evaporation that happens during the process, and some of the starter sticks to the spatula or the jar, etc., etc., so I prefer to do my regular 40/40/40 starter, to be on the safe side.

For inspiration.

In a nutshell, mix 40 grams unfed starter with 40 grams water and 40 grams unbleached all-purpose flour. Let it sit loosely covered on your kitchen counter. Once the starter has tripled it is ready to use. This should take maybe 6 to 8 hours, depending on the temperature in your kitchen, how active your starter is, etc. If you do not want to bake with the starter, you can leave it until the next day. Pour 40 grams of it into a new jar, along with 40 grams of water and 40 grams flour and mix. Either throw away the discard, or save it in your fridge for another use. This is if you want to feed it every day so that you have active bubbly starter available on a daily basis. If this seems excessive, you can always feed your starter, let it sit on your counter for an hour or two, then pop it in the fridge. It will stay dormant in there for quite a while. Put it on the lowest shelf in the very back, which is usually the coldest spot in your fridge. When you are planning on baking, pull the starter out and feed it for a day or two to bring it back up to speed. And that’s it! Time to get started!