I love to bake sourdough bread, and keep a sourdough starter fed every day. Her name is Eleanor and I love her. BUT, sourdough can be a wasteful thing if you don’t find ways to use up the discard.
Sourdough is a very beautiful thing, but is a slower endeavour, with start-to-finish times in the 24-48 hour range — this can be a great exercise in ‘slow food’ and allow us to take a step out of our instant, now now now culture, and enjoy the slow beauty of sourdough.
BUT, sometimes you’re planning dinner, realize you need buns for dinner and don’t have a day or two for the slow-ferment beauty of true sourdough.
This recipe is the best of both worlds, it allows you to use up sourdough discard, but uses commercial yeast to give speed up the process and use it same day.
- 1 cup water
- 2/3 cup soy milk (almond or cashew would work, rice or coconut would be too thin)
- 2 TBSP margarine or oil
- 2 TBSP sugar
- 2 tsp salt
- 4 1/3 cup flour (sub in up to 2 cups with whole wheat flour)
- 1 1/2 tsp yeast
- 1/2 cup Eleanor (or whatever your sourdough starter’s name is, maybe Rudiger?)
- 2 tsp of herbs if desired (depending on what you are serving this with)
Chuck the above in your bread maker on ‘dough’ cycle
Once it beeps, usually around an hour and a half:
Divide into 16 ish balls (I usually do 16 just becuase you can divide in halves and not worry too much about sizing, i.e., divided in half, ya got 2, then divide those you got 4, divide those, 8, divide those, 16. Fool proof, which is what I need in my life!
Grease a pan
Pop your buns in
Let rise for 30-60 minutes, until they double (watch them! I like to set a timer for 20 minutes, then check them every ten minutes). Don’t let them rise and fall. That would be sad.
When they are getting close, preheat oven to 350F
Bake for 20-25 minutes
Serve with plant based margarine and your fave soup
Northern Wild woman 