I've Done It!

I finally made a half-way decent sourdough loaf! One that kind of looks like the loaves I see in the grocery store! And I owe all the credit to my new Romertopf! I got it for my 30th Birthday and it worked perfectly! You soak the clay pot in warm water for 10-15 minutes...

Then let the loaves rise in a warm oven...

Brush the loaves with cold water, score, and bake! Here is the loaf that I made in a conventional sandwich loaf pan:

And here is the Romertopf loaf! Golden with a glossy, chewy crust. Yum. The steam from the Romertopf creates a cooking environment much like that of a professional steam-injected bakery oven. I had resigned myself to the fact that without a professional oven, I'd never get results that even came close to a professional loaf, but I was WRONG!! Thankfully...
Now, I just have to improve my crumb and make the loaf less dense in texture. I will continue my mission to make a truly great Sourdough loaf!

Another first for me this week was BUTTER! As in I made my own. It's so ridiculously easy, I can't think why more people don't do it. Literally, the recipe goes like this:
Buy heavy whipping cream. Pour cream into electric mixer. Whip the cream until it turns into butter. Drain buttermilk. Enjoy.
Now, I won't say that making your own butter is cheaper than buying it, but I will say that it's a heck of a lot of fun and it tastes great! Not to mention that the satisfaction of making your own is enough to offset the cost of the cream. It's totally worth it. Matt and I decided to make compound butter with herbs from the garden.
Here's the buttermilk. It's not sour like the cultured stuff in the grocery store. It's actually very mild and is less sweet than even 2%. Perfectly acceptable to drink with cookies. Or save it and make buttermilk biscuits. Or pancakes. Or custard. Get the picture? It's good stuff.

Here is the amount of butter made from three pints of heavy whipping cream- approx. one pound!

After I massaged most of the buttermilk out of it, we mixed in about two teaspoons of sea salt as well as rosemary, sage, and thyme from the garden.


Here's the compound butter on wax paper ready to be rolled.
Ta Da! All finished. These rolls will last at least 6 months in the freezer and up to a month in the fridge (if you don't eat it all first). It's great on bread, steaks, fish, chicken, the list goes on and on. You can also make sweet compound butter with pecans and brown sugar that's great on biscuits or scones.

The whole process took about 20 minutes from start to finish. What freedom! I'll never have to buy butter again!