I was really excited about making sourdough bread after I successfully brought a sourdough starter to life.  It sat in the sunny window and then warmed by the fire.  It was bubbling away and I was smelling it a couple times a day to see what was happening.  Once it smelled like sourdough bread, I attempted my first loaf of bread.

I mixed everything together and set the dough to rise.  It said 6-12 hours for the first rise.  I was a little worried about this since the temperature in my house is not anywhere close to constant, and it can get a little chilly at night.  I decided that if I started first thing in the morning that it would be fine, but it never even hinted that it was close to rising.  Four loaves later I still could not get the bread to rise.  Back to the internet to figure out what was wrong.  But what I found was even better: sourdough biscuits!

I found a recipe for biscuits at Cultures for Health, but ended up needing to double it to make enough to feed my hungry children.

3 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup coconut oil or shortening

2 cups sourdough starter

2 eggs

You can make these biscuits without eggs or oil.  They are just more dense.

First sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.  Cut in the coconut oil or shortening.

I find that it works best with warm, melty coconut oil.  Once that is cut in, add the starter.  If you have one of those amazing dough mixers that I have, it works perfectly.

Yes, it is a hand mixer.  We don’t have a power mixer, or power… Next step is to knead the dough about 10 minutes.  I found that I had to add a decent amount of flour.  Then make a roll with the dough and slice it up.  I have tried many different sizes and they all work well.

Let the biscuits rise about an hour.  These can now be baked like regular biscuits.  I baked mine in a cast iron skillet with the lid to my dutch oven.  I preheated both pieces and cooked the biscuits slowly over a low heat.

The biscuits store well for a few days if you can make it that long.  I only found this out because we made way too many for Thanksgiving.  This is what we normally end up with.