CottageSour Artisan Bread

02/09/2024

Hello all. Please check out
My Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/cottagesour?igsh=MW5qMmw2YmRuenh4aw==

I don't use Facebook much, there's a lot more about my bread on instagram

291 Followers, 272 Following, 276 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Darren Stevenson ()

10/22/2023

CottageSour bread journey welcomes a new piece of equipment today.

My employer gifted me a commercial bread slicer 😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲
It's so big I had to put it on my workbench in the garage.

Yeah I have no words either....except ...holy wow! Remember I mentioned some happenings were in the works, this is only the beginning....

01/29/2023

This is what I love to do. This mornings bake fresh out of the oven.

CottageSour sourdough and herb foccacia

01/21/2023

I'd like you to meet Annabelletoo. This is a mixture of whole wheat flour and water. Nothing else has been added. Why whole wheat? I believe there is a much higher nutritional value not only to us as the comsumers of eating whole wheat breads, but also the nutritional value that is still there because the entire wheat berry has been ground instead of the best parts being milled out and thrown away. So it's just my natural way of thinking that it would benefit the Lactobacillus bacteria and wild yeasts by using whole wheat flour to make my starter.....

The steps to making a successful starter are really simple. But first you must do something very important. You must buy yourself a kitchen scale. Amazon, or any stores that sell kitchen supplies you can usually find small electronic digital scales. Any successful professional bakers and even home bakers will tell you weighing out your ingredients and creating formulas is the key to proper baking.

Aside from that creating a starter is very simple. Day one you take 25 grams of flour, and 25 grams of water. Mix them together in a bowl cover it with plastic, and leave it there until the next day. Do the same thing again. And again on the third day. By now you may start to see something happen. Bubbles, and liquid forming on the top. This is the magic you are waiting for.....

You may also be wonder what to do with it because it's not ready and you have too much. This is where you will discard half of what you have. And this is the most important step. You must weigh what you have left, and then add back half the weight of flour, and half the weight of water. This is how you establish a 100% hydration starter.

Continue to do this for about 2 weeks. By this time, you should have a very active starter, and should be ready to make bread

01/21/2023

Hello,

Welcome to CottageSour artisan sourdough bread. That's quite a name, and it is something special. As a home baker, cottage rules allow me to sell my breads that I make to customers from my home. And as my new found passion for making sourdough bread grows, it came to me to create the name CottageSour.
I am Certified in HACCP, I have foodsafe training and certification, I have over 26 years of experience in the food industry, and even longer experience making bread. I went to cooking school to learn how to work with food and create amazing things, but my favorite food to make is bread.....
Over the ages bread has been a staple of households for more than 4000 years. The ancient ways of harvesting wheat and grains, grinding them down between stones to make flour, and then mixing flour with water and a little bit of salt to make a dough. If you mix water and flour and let it start to ferment on your counter, and keep feeding it fresh flour and water every day eventually you have something that brings life to your bread called a sour. This sour is the key to making true authentic sourdough bread. And when you add it to your dough, bread truly comes to life. Sour is a living thing. it needs to be fed, it needs to rest, it needs to breathe.....Or it will die, so to will we.....
My sour's name is Annabelletoo. After my first sour Annabelle went bad from lack of use, I decided to stop baking for a while. And then it happened I was once again inspired to start this again and Annabelletoo was born.
So welcome to my page, CottageSour is back and better than ever....