I bought ten pounds of King Arthur flour Friday to try to salvage my sourdough starter. I figured out why it was doing so poorly. Last. Weekend I went to The Pig to buy flour and they didn’t have King Arthur. So, I bought White Lily. Without even thinking, I fed my starter and it got worse and worse every day till it hardly had any bubbles and didn’t smell nearly as good as it did before. I finally dawned on me…White Lily is bleached flour and the chlorine residue damages or even kills a starter. 

I usually have a “mother” jar…a starter that is strong and healthy. You feed it, put a loose lid on it, and put it straight in the fridge where it stays. Every week or so, you feed it like normal but you don’t use it…you just keep it for insurance. The thing is…I fed it with the White Lily and it was NOT happy. I keep a jar of discard…the extra that’s left over when you’re baking. Again…it had White Lily in it. I tried to figure out what to do when I remembered I did an experiment a couple of months ago. 

I often watch how-to videos on YouTube…most on baking and knitting. One of the videos I watched said when you pour out the discard into the discard jar, scrape all out except maybe a tablespoon or so, cover it with a tight lid, and stick it in the back of your fridge. It’ll last in there for months. To feed it, you put a little warm filtered water in the jar and using a scraper, soften and loosen and scrape off every little bit of starter that you can off the inside of the jar. Then put enough flour in to make a thick batter consistency. I put mine in the oven with just the oven light on and it keeps it the perfect temperature. 

I was so excited when I checked it yesterday morning and it rose really well. I fed it again to make sure it was active. By afternoon, it had doubled and I was thrilled to see that activity. I fed it again before we went to the birthday party at the bowling alley last night. Since it was so robust, it more than doubled so I set up my levain before I went to bed because I need to bake again today.

The evening out with family is just what the doctor ordered and I felt so much better after getting out for a while. The daffodils are blooming. The iris beds are putting out flat blades and I’m hoping the Black Iris will bloom this year. Mrs. FixIt 1.0 gave them to me and they are gorgeous. There are som buds on the trees. The peepers are singing. The birds and the bees are doing what birds and bees do. Well, actually…I haven’t seen bees yet, but the worms are doing the tango out in the lawn. I’ve never seen so many earthworms in a single yard before. I’ve heard that’s a sign of a healthy lawn. We had a lot of rain yesterday and a little bit of hail. That always makes me nervous since we had so much hail damage last summer. 

I hope you are enjoying this beautiful spring weather as much as we are!

💚

“Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” ‭‭John‬ ‭6‬:‭35‬ ‭NLT‬‬

***Gratitude Journal***   
Today I am grateful for family near and far. We are the ones that are always there for each other through thick and thin. I miss my Colorado family so much and can’t wait to see them this summer. I need to get over the mountains to see my WV family. And I love my FixIt family here in town. I am so grateful to have family to love and be loved by.