Milk n' Honey sourdough!

Here they are!  And I shall tell you their story. 

But I shall preface their story (and recipe) with a warning.  Grace missed the bus yesterday, the day these were to be made.  The day they were made.  But as many of you know, missing the bus in the morning has the potential to throw the entire day off.  Going from having one hour to get three kids ready, in the car and to town to having fifteen minutes is a bit jarring.  But we did it.  And nobody yelled, though Grace did get kicked in they eye by her little sister.  And nobody was late.  PHEW!

A couple months ago Grace went to a friend's house and came home with a loaf of bread.  It was yummy, so I called and asked for the recipe.  (Thanks, Monica!)  It wasn't a sourdough recipe, but it was a place to start. 

Milk n' Honey Bread

1 T yeast

2 1/2 cups warm milk

1/3 cup honey

1/4 cup butter

2 tsp salt

8-8 1/2 cups flour

It makes two loaves.  And I'm assuming you dissolve the yeast in the milk and then mix and knead like you normally do. 

I knew there was a way to convert yeast recipes to sourdough, so I searched and found this method.  I used the first method--Jack.  Of the two others, one is the "simplistic computer generated method" and the other one involved math.  I'm not a math person and not a computer geek.  Honestly I am one who tends to use recipes as a general guide rather than actually follow them.  So far nobody has died, so I decided anything computer generated or involving math was not worth my time and went with Jack.  Mostly.

I put the 2 1/2 cups milk (cold because I didn't want to warm it up) in my bowl, added about 5 cups of flour (I used wheat) to get a batter and stirred in my starter--about a cup.  (I did leave a bit of starter out because I didn't know how it would turn out and didn't want to use it all and then be a complete failure and have ruined starter or non at all.) 

Then I covered it and let it sit on the counter overnight.

We got up the next morning, missed the bus and lost our minds.  So, I was feeling rushed.  But I melted the 1/3 cup of honey with the 1/4 cup butter.  Then I stirred about 1/2 cup of flour into the honey butter mixture to cool it off as to not kill my sponge I had lovingly let sit on my counter overnight.  I added that with the salt to my sponge and stirred.  And finally I added the flour a bit at a time and kneaded it.  But because I had lost my mind when we missed the bus, I didn't add enough flour.  So it was really sticky after it was done kneading.

But I decided I didn't have time to remedy that and I set it to its first raise. 

And then I went to get Calla at preschool. 

When it was doubled in size I punched it down and put it in the greased pans and set it on its second raise.

When it was looking like it had double in size, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees and stuck them in for 30 minutes.  Don't forget to butter the tops when they are done! 

They turned out beautiful. And melt in your mouth yummy.