First of all, have you all tasted Camembert Cheese. It’s earthier and more intense cheese than Brie. Allow it to shine in the middle of a crusty, sourdough bread, and your family and friends (even kids) will think you’re a genius. This sourdough camembert wreath is gorgeous and seductive, as well as absolutely delicious.

The truth is, this is way easier to make than it looks, thanks to my favorite book on sourdough by Emilie Raffa, Artisan Sourdough made Simple. I have made at least 10 of the recipes and I encourage you to buy this book, because she has fantastic knack of dumbing down intimidating recipes, so us regular folks that don’t have a bread bakery can bake successful sourdough in our home kitchens.

I have become smitten with sourdough for about three years, and make my own starter which you can make here.

We have made this sourdough wreath many times. It disappears in less than 30 minutes, and they’ll say “make it again.” Some of the magic is in the cheese, but the garlic clove and fresh rosemary add a little more umami.

Main Ingredients for Sourdough Camembert Wreath

• Sourdough starter
• Bread Flour
• Cambembert wheel (small size) in container.
• Garlic clove
• Fresh Rosemary

Give Yourself 2 Days to Make Sourdough Camembert Wreath

Prepare Dough Night Before. Refrigerate overnight. Bring out next day to finish and bake. OR

Prepare dough first thing in morning for evening serve.

• Make Dough: flour, water, salt, starter, rest 30 minutes.
• First Rise: Bring together in a ball. Allow to rise for 8-10 hours. At this point, you can refrigerate overnight.
• Shape into a round. Poke a hole. Put in bottom container of cheese. Can refrigerate at this point.
• Second Rise: If you didn’t refrigerate, rise for 30-60 minutes. If refrigerated, allow to rise for 1 to 2 hours to take off chill.
• Make Wreath: Cut dough all around with scissors to make wreath, holding shears at 45 degree angle.
• Slice garlic clove, thinly, place in cheese, along with sprigs of rosemary, drizzle of olive oil.
• Preheat oven to 450 F, 236 C.
• Bake 25 to 30 minutes on a baking sheet
• Cool before serving. (Which is impossible for us).

Emilie tells us to enjoy this on the day it’s made, but that has never been an issue.

Playing around: You could use a small brie cheese and add brown sugar mixed with butter and chopped pecans for a sweeter version.

More Sourdough Recipes from Spinach Tiger

• Sourdough Starter (Easy Way)
• Sourdough Focaccia
• Sourdough Biscuits
• Sourdough Boule (coming)
• Sourdough Braid with Spinach Dip (coming)

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Camembert Sourdough Wreath

Easy to make sourdough wreath with camembert in center of wreath, adapted from Emilie Raffa'sw Artisan Sourdough Made Simple

Course Bread

Cuisine American

Keyword bread, camembert, sourdough

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 38 minutes minutes

Overnight Rest, Dough Rest 10 hours hours

Ingredients

• 50 grams bubbly sourdough starter Recipe Here
• 285 grams warm water
• 480 grams bread flour
• 9 grams sea salt

Filling

• 1 camembert cheese small wheel
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 sprig rosemary
• olive oil for drizzling

Instructions

Sourdough

• Start the process the night before you bake. If you wanted to start process same day, know that you will need about 12 hours from start to serving. This I why preparing the dough the night before is suggested.
• Step One: Mix flour and salt. Set aside
• Step Two: Add sourdough starter into water,
• Step Three: Add flour mix. Mix with hands until you have a rough dough.
• Step Four: Cover for one hour with damp towel.
• Step Five: After one hour, bring dough together to form a ball.
• First Rise: Cover with damp cloth. Leave overnight. Dough will double in size after 8 to 10 hours.
  
• Form dough into a dough round, using generous amount of flour.
  
• If you are not ready to bake for several hours, place in fridge, covered for 6 to 8 hours. Take out three hours prior to the time you want to serve. You need two hours to take off the chill, 30 minutes to bake and 30 minutes to rest the bread.
• If you have refrigerated to delay process, rest on counter covered for two hours to take off chill.
• Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Poke a hole in the middle of the dough and stretch the hole to place the bottom container of the cheese. Don't make the cuts of the dough until after the 30 minute rise.
  
• Cover with damp towel. Allow to rise for 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 450 Degrees F. (235 C.)
• Slice off the one side of white rind of cheese. Add thinly sliced garlic and a rosemary sprig. Drizzle lightly with a tiny bit of olive oil.
• Cut around the bread at 45 degree angles. This mean the angles are slanted not straight. Each cut will be a piece of bread to be pulled off.
• Add prepared cheese it the cheese box.
  
• Bake 25 to 20 minutes.
• Tip: bread Is done when internal temperature reaches 208 F. (98 C.)
  

The post Sourdough Camembert Wreath appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

I want to show you how to make a starter without too much complication. You can read volumes on making sourdough starter. For the beginner, this is quite daunting. I’m hoping to give you a fairly easy explanation of what a starter is, what is does, how to make it and how to maintain it. I’ve successfully made and maintained a starter for three years, making bread and various sourdough recipes in our kitchen that disappears in about ten minutes.

I’ll be totally honest with you. A few years back I didn’t know what a starter was, why sourdough was so different from yeasted bread. I only knew I loved it.

Long before the sourdough craze during the lockdown, I wanted to crack this mysterious sourdough starter code, but it needed to be EASY!

What is Sourdough Starter?

Sourdough starter is a fermented, culture, made from flour and water. It’s science, chemistry, and a God send all in one. It captures wild yeast in the air (microbes, bacteria) and ferments into a gooey, bubbly reaction that must be fed to keep it going, because it is alive.

What Do These Bubbles Mean?

In simple terms, as acidic substances are produced, and a large amount of carbon dioxide is released, the bread will rise in the oven.

All the yummy, crusty fermented sourdough loaves begin with bubbly starter! It will result in a tangy bread with holes, which means the starter did its job rising and moving the dough up and around as it is baked.

This picture is in the early stages of building my starter.

What You Need to Make a Sourdough Starter.

You will need flour, water and a food scale. Don’t let food scale or the idea of weighing in grams scare you away. If this is your first time using a scale, measuring in grams, it’s easy.

When you place the empty jar on the scale, hit zero or tare. This will eliminate the weight of the vessel. When you add your flour, hit zero or tare again and add the water.

• Place vessel on scale. Press tare.
• Add flour. Press tare.
• Add water.

Starter Doubles Overnight: Here is one of my starters that was fed the night before and is made from all purpose flour.

Discard 40 grams of starter. Add in 20 grams flour, 20grams filtered water. Stir.

If you plan on making sourdough every now and then, keep starter in refrigerator and feed once a week. There are times when your starter will look quite unpleasant. Sometimes it will smell like nail polish remover. Don’t throw it out. Feed it. It will turn around.

If you plan on making bread daily, keep it on the counter and feed it daily.

What Flour Do You Use for Sourdough Starter?

You can keep it simple and use all purpose flour or bread flour.

I began my original starter with a mix of all purpose flour and wholewheat flour 3 to 1 ratio. You can use all purpose flour, bread flour and add in some wholewheat flour. Bread flour is high in protein. Whole grain flours tend to contain more organisms to feed the yeasts and bacteria.

Switching Flours

Adding whole grain flour is not necessary, especially if you have several days to build your starter. I would not switch from 100% wholewheat flour to all purpose flour. If you start off with one flour and choose to change, do a gradual change.

How to Give Sourdough Starter to a Friend

I will usually pour out about 100 grams of sour starter that I would be discarding and give it a good feeding for a day or two before I gift it.

When You Receive Sourdough Starter – What To Do

• Before you do anything, give your new starter a good feeding. Pour out half or up to 50 grams of your starter and replace the same amount of grams. 25 grams warmish water, 25 grams flour. Stir enough to not have dry flour patches. Put lid back on.
• Decide is you want to keep your starter on the counter to bake a loaf or refrigerate for a time in future.
• If you’re not ready to bake, keep in refrigerator, and feed once a week.
• Prior to baking a loaf, you will want to make sure your starter is bubbly.

My Sourdough Bakes

Now that you have conquered making a starter a fairly easy way, get to baking. I love the recipes in this book, because they are spelled out for the home cook in easy fashion. I only caution that her baking times for the bread are a bit too long. You might reduce them. I’ll be blogging some of the recipes with my adjusted baking times.

• Sourdough Biscuits (what to do with Starter)
• Sourdough Foccacia
• Camembert Sourdough Wreaeth

Helpful Articles on Sourdough Starter

Help. Something is Wrong with My Sourdough Starter.

How to Switch Your Sourdough Starter to New Type Flour

PIN THIS

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Sourdough Starter

How to make sourdough starter and how to maintain it.

Course Bread

Cuisine American

Keyword sourdough, sourdough starter

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Development Time 6 days days

Equipment

• Food Scale
• Mason Jar

Ingredients

• 150 grams unbleached all purpose flour see notes
• 150 grams filtered water

Instructions

• In morning, mix flour and water together In jar large enough to allow mixture to double. Keep In warmest part of kitchen.
• After 24 hours, discard 150 grams of starter.
• Add 75 grams each of flour and water. Mix. Put lid back on. Keep In warmest part of the kitchen.
• Repeat this twice a day for the next four to five days,
• You can now assess if your starter is ready to bake. Take a tablespoon of the starter at its peak, (risen and bubbly) and drop into some warm water. If it floats, you can probably feel confident to bake. I like to build a starter for two full weeks, but you may not need to do that.

Maintaining Starter

• If you are keeping your starter out on counter, you must feed daily. If you are keeping your starter in fridge, feed weekly.

  Remove 50 grams of starter. Add 25 grams water, 25 grams flour.
• You want to have at least 50 grams of starter available for baking, which means you want to have at east 100 grams of starter in your jar.

When Ready to Bake

• Make sure when you are ready to use starter, it's at the most bubbly stage, which is active fermentation.

Notes

You can use bread flour, but I  have found keeping my starter going with all-purpose flour works just fine. Feel free to change to bread flour.

 

The post How to Make Sourdough Starter and Care for It appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

I’ve made sourdough bread many times and focaccia many times, but I’ve never put them together. I am making Emilie Raffa’s recipe from her book, Artisan Sourdough Made Simple. 

We love this book. The recipes are approachable and always successful. If you’re just starting out with sourdough, I highly recommending starting with this book. 

As we were browsing through this book, that offers the easiest sourdough recipes, we made several, and then landed on sourdough focaccia. I’ve made the sourdough loaves out of this book many times, and we love how easy they are to make and how delicious they come out.

While the twins (now 13) have been doing zoom school here, we got out the sourdough starter we have been using since July 2019, and decided to make two loaves of bread, a sweet roll, and this focaccia. 

This sourdough focaccia is perfect. I even slipped some garlic cloves in the skin, just as the recipe did, along with plenty of rosemary, Maldon sea salt flakes, and olive oil. 

Sourdough Focaccia

Focaccia is supposed to be more bouncy and softer, so I was a little skeptical that it might end up too crusty. It didn’t. It was absolutely perfect. 

While you could taste the sourdough, it had the bounce focaccia is famous for.

If you’ve never had roasted garlic, you’re in for a real treat. As far as putting garlic cloves on, still in their skins, I only wish I had put more than three. This is a culinary wonder. You taste the garlic, but not in an overwhelming way. The garlic bakes to a soft spreadable clove, giving you options to increase the lovely garlic flavor. 

The four of us pretty much killed this sourdough focaccia in a day. 

The Sourdough Focaccia Process

Set aside plenty of time. You make the dough the night before and let it rest for 18 hours. Many of the recipes in the book rest the dough for 12 hours. You will also need time for that second rise, but the baking time is only 25 minutes. I do find the recipes in the book to show baking times ten minutes longer than necessary. 

Once the dough has its final proofing, stretch it out by hand to a rectangle.

Use your finger to dimple. Add fresh garlic in the skin, fresh rosemary, and flaked sea salt.

Once baked, the focaccia is bouncy. Look at the wonderful holes.

You can get from 12 to 20 squares. No matter what, this will disappear fast. You could serve this as is, or with some dipping oil. I used 3 garlic cloves, but next time I’ll use more. The roasted garlic can be spread on the focaccia and is delicious, delicate and not overpowering.

Sourdough Starter

Read more about how we made our own sourdough starter from scratch here. It’s easier than you think.

It feels wrong sometimes to discard some of the starter in the jar to make room to feed it. Instead, why not make these sourdough biscuits.

You might even consider bottling up some starter and giving it to your friends for the holidays, along with this sourdough cookbook 

Sourdough Biscuits and Making starter here.

More Focaccia Recipes

• Fusion Radish Nori Focaccia
• Peach Rosemary Focaccia  
• Gluten Free Focaccia
• Overnight Focaccia (Refrigerated)

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Sourdough Focaccia with Rosemary and Garlic

Easy to make focaccia, from Emillie Raffa's book, Artisan Sourdough Made Simple. soft, pillowy and tangy with roasted garlic and rosemary.

Course Bread

Cuisine Italian

Keyword focaccia, sourdough

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Resting Time 10 hours hours

Servings 12 pieces

Ingredients

• 50 grams bubbly starter 1/4 cup
• 375 grams cool water 1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon
• 20 grams honey
• 150 grams all purpose flour see notes
• 350 grams bread flour
• 9 grams fine sea salt 1 1/2 teaspoons
• 45 grams olive oil 3 tablespoons

Toppings

• rosemary sprigs for during and after baking
• 3 garlic cloves in paper shells or more if you like
• 1 teaspoon Maldon flaked sea salt

Instructions

• Make dough night before you plan to bake it. Mix water, honey and starter in bowl with a wooden spoon.
• Weight out flour and salt in another bowl. Then add to liquid.
• Finish mixing by hand to make sure all flour is incorporated. You may want to flour your hands as this dough is sticky.
• Cover with damp towel in a warm environment of 70 degrees F. for 12 to 18 hours until the dough has doubled.
• Once doubled, place on oiled baking sheet, large enough to eventually make a focaccia measuring 14 x 9 with room around the edge. Make sure both sides of dough are oiled. Leave the blob of dough sit there, covered with a damp cloth for 2 hours until puffy. This is the last of the proofing.
• After two hours, stretch the dough to a rectangle of 14 x 9. Use fingers to poke holes. 3 across and 6 down works well.
• Stick garlic cloves in their skin into holes gently and arrange pieces of rosemary. Sprinkle flaked salt. You will add more chopped rosemary when the focaccia comes out of the oven.
• Once roasted, garlic will roast to a soft consistency and you can spread it on the focaccia if you desire.
• Bake at 485 degrees F. for 15 minutes, until golden brown.
• Add more chopped rosemary when the focaccia is hot.
• You may want to serve with more olive oil, garnished with rosemary and salt for dipping.
• Allow to cool (if you can wait) and cut with pizza cutter into squares. The focaccia will soften as it cools.

Notes

The original recipe from Emilie Raffa calls only for all purpose flour. I only had 150 grams of all purpose, so I mixed the flours. It was amazing, so if you don’t have all purpose flour, you can use bread flour.

The post Sourdough Focaccia Recipe appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

I’m reposting this sourdough biscuit recipe from 2019, as 2020 has shifted into a sourdough year. Stay tuned for my next post on the best sourdough focaccia you will ever eat. 

I was baking with the twins and each made their own starters from scratch. We had three jars of starter and needed to come up with some recipes to use it. One day we made sourdough waffles, but we were super excited to make these easy sourdough biscuits.

This is how our sourdough biscuits were born.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know I’m not a biscuit novice. My original southern fluffy biscuit has been visited over 360,000 times, and has great reviews.  If you love fluffy southern style biscuits, you’ll love these.

If you are followed my stories on instagram, you would know that once we decided to make sourdough bread, we made bread every day trying out different recipes and methods. All the bread was crusty and delicious and like biscuits, once you get it, you get it, even if it’s intimidating at first.

Making Sourdough Starter

Sourdough starter is basically flour and water. You should use unbleached flour  and filtered water starting with a 1 to 1 ratio for 100 percent hydration.  This means equal water to flour. You might see starters made as low as 65% hydration. That will result in a thicker starter, a stiffer baked good.

Start with 150 grams of unbleached bread flour (you can mix in some wholewheat flour) and 150 grams of filtered water. Stir into a jar large enough to hold it. Leave in warm (ish) place like inside a cabinet door. When we started making starters, we left them on the counter, in jars with lids and fed them every day. It was around 70 degrees F. although ideally, 75 is better.

We started our starter in the middle of summer and it took about two weeks to get a starter we could use. Each day, I would pour out half  and add back in that same amount I did the first day. 

Check each day for bubbling. Feed the starter after it peaks and is hungry. This means it has risen and is now starting to deflate. This can take 24 to 36 hours. When you see this, feed your hungry starter. Hunger looks weepy or watery.  Some people consider their starter is ready at 6 days. We went for two weeks and made two starters (just in case). Both were successful.

Maintaining a Healthy Starter

I keep in fridge and feed once a week. When I’ve forgotten by a few days, the starter gets that nail polish smell and very weepy. However, I’ve always been able to save it.  

I keep 100 grams of starter. I discard 50 grams and feed 25 grams of flour and 25 grams of  filtered water.

Now that it’s winter I put them in my laundry room/baking nook which is warmest part of the house.

Last night this starter doubled in size. 

Last night, I woke up to a wonderful bubbly starter.

Flour for Sourdough Starter

I used unbleached bread flour, but at times I feed it whatever I have (usually all purpose flour). You can use any kind of flour, (unbleached) and even mix flours. You will want to feed your starter when it peaks (rises and is bubbly).  This is very simplified, and there is a wonderful, in-depth article here from Serious Eats. 

We decided to each make our own starter that summer and all three took hold.  Eventually by the end of summer we combined the starters. To keep it going, I have kept it in the refrigerator and fed it every week with 20 grams each of flour and water, while discarding 40 grams first.

This starter made this bread, which was a 24 hour process. The biscuits, though can be made right away as long as you have a nice bubbly starter.

Keeping Your Sourdough Starter for Years 

When I know we are not making bread, I keep in refrigerator in a mason jar and feed weekly. I will discard the amount I’m going to feed. For example, discard 40 grams, feed 20 grams flour, 20 grams water. That’s it. It has remained active and alive for 18 months. 

Some people freeze their starter, but I’ve never done that. 

Baking these Easy sourdough biscuits is a great way to use left-over or discarded sourdough starter.

When I asked Doug which biscuits he liked better, he thought they were equally good, but different.

They were fluffy and flavorful with a slight sourdough tang.

Are sourdough biscuits gluten free?

No, they use regular flour. I’ve read some gluten free recipes for sourdough but haven’t tried them yet. Some people that are gluten sensitive can eat sourdough bread without the typical problems. Everyone is an individual.

Can you freeze sourdough biscuits?

Biscuits are best eaten the day they are made. You can but if you decide to freeze them, bake them for a minute or two less, and then heat them up in the oven.

Please follow me on instagram and if you make a recipe, tag me #spinachtiger. I would love to see it.

If you like this recipe, we really would appreciate you rating it five stars. It means a lot.

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Sourdough Biscuits with Sourdough Starter

Use up sourdough starter by making delicious fluffy sourdough biscuits.

Course Biscuits

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 25 minutes minutes

Servings 10

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter cold in cubes
• 1 cup sourdough starter
• 1/2 cup milk
  
• Kitchen Tools
• Pastry Butter Cutter
• Biscuit Cutter
• Cast Iron Griddle or Baking Sheet

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
• Whisk all dry ingredients together.
• Add cold small cubed butter. Mix with hands or cut in with pastry cutter
• Add starter. Mix well.
• Add in milk, more if needed. You want a sticky dough you can handle.
• Form dough into a round and make 10 two-inch biscuits. Less if biscuit cutter is larger.
• Arrange on cast iron griddle or baking pan, touching.
• Bake for 13-15 minutes.
• Makes 8 to 10 biscuits. I was able to get 10 with a two-inch biscuit cutter.

The post Easy Sourdough Biscuits with Sourdough Starter appeared first on Spinach Tiger.