One of the downsides of baking sourdough is that keeping the starter fresh and lively involves a certain amount of waste. There is the old, sour leaven that’s been kept in the fridge for a while, before feeding as the first stage of making a loaf, as well as the spare ripe leaven that it becomes after refreshing. We thought that it would be an interesting experiment to see what happens if you add the leftover leaven to a yeasted loaf, as a way of using it rather than throwing it away. The leaven we used wasn’t too sour (7 days since the last refresh) – it didn’t have a layer of liquid hooch on top, and didn’t smell too acidic.
The resulting loaf was delicious, with a hint of sourdough flavour. Perfect for toasting, or freezing, so here’s our leftover sourdough starter recipe. Adapt the recipe for the quantities of leaven you have.
Other delicious sourdough includes – our slow fridge risen no knead sourdough, or our cranberry chocolate sourdough muffins which also use up leftover leaven.
A loaf to use up leftover sourdough leaven
Ingredients
- 180 g sour leaven
- 400 g bread flour (60% white and 40% wholemeal)
- 250 ml water
- Glug olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 7 g dried yeast
Instructions
- Bake it the same way as a standard yeasted loaf.
- Bring the ingredients together and then knead the dough thoroughly.
- Allow to bulk raise until it’s about doubled in volume, and feels springy to the touch.
- Turn out of the bowl, knock back and form into a loaf, and place in a buttered baking tin.
- Allow to rise again and then bake at 180°C fan / 350°F (fan) / Gas mark 6 for 40 minutes.
- It’s done when it sounds hollow on the bottom when tapped.
Notes
- Use up leftover leaven in our leftover sourdough leaven loaf
Sally - My Custard Pie
How timely. The person taking care of my sour dough starter only fed it every two weeks. Have poured off the vile grey liquid and scooped out some to try and revive. A mass of slightly bubbly, thick starter remains. Will try this out.
Helen
Let me know how it goes Sally.
Camilla
Looks lovely – wish my hubby baked me bread! A fab #CreditCrunchMunch recipe;-)
Helen
Ed was sent on a bread course and always does the baking now.
Emily
That looks like a loaf that Paul would be approving of. Nice work! x
Helen
Ed is the expert baker, I cannot remember the last time I did anything with yeast or sourdough.
nazima
I must get my sourdough baking back on track. I like the idea of adding levain to a yeasted dough to add a nicer flavour and boost the yeast factor!
Helen
It is a great way not to waste the leaven, we are experimenting with adding to all sorts of bakes.
Jeanne Horak-Druiff
Mmm, I do love the tang of sourdough – intrigued by this hybrid loaf! Very envious of bread-baking Ed – does he make house-calls? ;)
Helen
I can send him over Jeanne!
Elizabeth
I went through a spell of making sourdough and then I stopped and I’m pretty sure my starter was a biohazard! I really ought to get back into it. This recipe looks amazing, and thank you for sharing it with the No Waste Food Challenge!
Helen
Make more sourdough ELizabeth. Although I am very fortunate that Ed does it.
Laura @ KneadWhine
Ooh – I really failed with sourdough last time I tried – looks like Ed is making good use of all of the product here! Yum!
Helen
I think to make good sourdough you really need to do a course Laura. You can make it from books, but it is such a tactile skill and the leaven behaves so differently in different temperatures and humidity that judgement is really important.
Jacqueline Meldrum
It looks like a great loaf of bread Helen. I really need to get back into breadmaking.
Helen
There is nothing like good homemade bread
Bob
That’s a good looking loaf, & I like the idea of not throwing away any leaven. Too good to waste!
Helen
thanks Bob. We hate food waste and the use of the leaven makes a massive difference to the flavour of the loaf.
Sarah Hernande
I think that German bakers make yeast assisted sourdough loaves.
Helen
That is really interesting Sarah. We do it to stop the food waste, and it makes the loaf faster.
Rachel Anderson
Baking bread shows such dedication! Sourdough even more so. Wish I really had the time, because this looks so much better than a packet from the supermarket.
Helen
The actual hands on time is not that much. It is a good project for the weekend when you are at home to “tend” to it.
Andy
Hi there,
Thanks for sharing this! I had a question about the baking. Can you tell me what this means:
Allow to rise again and then bake at 180 fan/Gas mark 6 for 40 minutes.
180 degrees? Fan/gas mark 6? I’ve been baking loaves recently at 450 deg. recently and just wanted to sure about the temp. Wasn’t sure what fan/gas mark 6 meant too. I’m new so I’m sorry if this is a silly question.
Ed
Not a silly question at all! We have a UK gas oven, which is graduated from gas mark 1 to 9. Gas mark 6 equates to 180°C (Fan oven) or 350°F (Fan oven). Typically, most conversion charts go 20°C/40°F higher for non-fan ovens, but you know your oven best!