My friend Cindee is putting together a sourdough party for anyone interested in learning how to bake sourdough bread. She graciously invited me to participate, and so I decided to put together a list of resources and recipes that I enjoy.
As I review the list, it occurs to me that since I am such a "waste not" personality, I mainly use discard sourdough for non-bread recipes. In addition, I come from a tradition of sourdough bakers who also use yeast in the recipe. My mother got her sourdough starter and rye bread recipe from a commercial baker. The combination of using lower-gluten rye flour, a huge recipe that makes up to 8 loaves, and the need to get many loaves out quickly, the recipe needed the yeast for efficiency. Finally, as I battled some crazy OCD in my younger years, one of my strategies for recovery was becoming less precise in some areas of my life. Thus I have no clue what hydration my starter is or any of the pickier details needed to make a reliable pure sourdough bread. My pure sourdough breads did not turn out great, so maybe there are a few tweaks I can make (that won't send me back over the edge) to help my technique. However, the starter discard works fantastic in any of the recipes below.
My favorite way to use sourdough discard are making the King Arthur's Sourdough Waffles. I like to use one cup white and one cup wheat flour. If you don't have buttermilk, you can substitute kefir or half cup yogurt and half cup milk. For pumpkin waffles, substitute one cup of buttermilk with canned pumpkin and add pumpkin pie spice to taste (one teaspoon minimum).
If cake is more your style, try this Sourdough Almond Jam Cake. The sourdough replaces any dairy, which is pleasant for anyone with a milk allergy. You can use any jam you like if you don't have mulberry jam on hand. This recipe is measured in grams and Celsius, but Google easily makes conversions for you.
The cake I made for the party is Sourdough Blueberry Crumb Cake. This cake has dairy, but doesn't contain nuts.
Pie crust is an interesting way to use discard. When I tasted the crust dough, I thought it needed a savory filling and used THIS recipe for the filling. I don't think I had all of the ingredients for the filling so I substituted something. The dough was super sticky (probably my starter had too much water in it) so I squeezed dough into a pan and dotted the top with clumps like a cobbler. Reheat this potpie in the oven if you are lucky enough to have leftovers.
Finally, my busy lifestyle takes advantage of my bread maker from time to time. I really like THIS recipe although I use one cup of whole wheat and 2 cups of white. If I plan ahead correctly, I mix all the ingredients together EXCEPT the 1 cup whole wheat, yeast, and salt. I'll put the flour on top of the wet dough, and carefully sprinkle the yeast and salt on top so it doesn't get wet. Then I program the machine for extra time, which gives the sourdough a chance to do its thing for a few hours before the machine starts its cycle.
The last recipe is also a bread maker recipe, and it uses two cups of discard. You can use the same strategy for mixing everything together and placing the last half cup flour with salt and yeast on top of the wet ingredients and programming the machine for extra time. I will use at least one cup whole wheat in this recipe. You do want to be around when the bread maker starts. I usually need to add some more flour. Again, who knows how much water is in my starter, that I need to do this?!! If your starter is stiffer, you may find yourself adding another tablespoon of water. All of the rising agents make this bread very tall!
In case you are still looking for additional discard recipes, King Arthur has an extensive list that you can find HERE. I'm getting hungry just looking at the choices!
You can access all my sourdough mentions at THIS link. I don't think there are many, but I'll add the label if I find some old posts that I missed.
Let me know if you have questions in the comments, or hop over to our private Facebook page. Enjoy!
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