biscuit fermented Herman real food sourdough

Sourdough biscuits (cookies) - adapting a recipe for sourdough

May 17, 2013by Farmer Liz

Since I got my sourdough cake starter, I've been having fun experimenting with other uses for it. I can be adapted to all sorts of sweet recipes, and as we don't eat a lot of cake, that is a good thing!

mixing up the dry ingredients, the butter and some starter

When I first received the starter it came with all these instructions about how to feed it and look after it. This included feeding it every few days, not keeping it in the fridge, splitting it after a week and giving most of it away. Needless to say I ignored these, otherwise I would ave no starter left! Here's how to actually look after your starter:

You can keep the starter in the fridge, in a glass jar - mine has been living there for several months.
You just have to get it out every 2 weeks (or so), give it a good stir and tip out half (you can either give that half away, use it in baking or just tip it on the compost)
Then top it up with a bit of flour, sugar and milk (or water), stir and leave it at room temp for a day to ferment a little. Then put it back in the fridge.

Adapting a recipe is easy, some things turn out a little different, but they are all edible, and have a pleasant sourness. All I do is mix up all the dry ingredients and the butter or coconut oil in the morning that I want to bake and I add a little sourdough starter and stir it up. Its hard to say how much to add, as it depends on the consistency of the starter and the dough or batter that you're making, just add what looks right. I leave that in a covered container at room temperature for most of the day. Then I add the other ingredients, extra milk, eggs and rising agent usually. If the recipe says to use baking powder, I just use baking soda, as the mix is already acidic and the soda will react just nicely.

So far I have made sourdough cake, sourdough pancakes and sourdough biscuits. If you don't know anyone who has a "Herman" sourdough starter, there are instructions for making one here. If anyone has Herman to share, please leave a comment with your location and others near you may be able to benefit from your starter too. Please also share how you use your starter :)

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