Starters - how people use them and what they put in them are as varied as the people that use them. Just Google - Care and Feeding of Sourdough Starters - for a real lesson in contradictions. The good news is you can try a wide variety of "starters" until you find the one/s you like. My favorite is a 100-year old starter method called Everlasting Yeast. I can feed it rye flour if I want a rye starter. I also use whole wheat flour or spelt.... I use what kind of flour I have on hand that might need to be used up, as well what type of starter might work best in a recipe. "Starter" is also called levain, desum, barm, or sourdough. According to "Crust & Crumb", those names indicate a certain method of creating the starter, and the level of acidity and complexity. "Old Dough" is also a starter method - where you keep a bit of dough from your last breadmaking to use as a starter for the next. For more information I'd suggest finding a copy of "Crust & Crumb" by Peter Reinhart and "The Bread Book" by Thom Leonard. Both men are experts in the world of naturally-leavened breads. I've also included a link below for more information. But when it comes to plain old fun and a lot of recipes, you can also choose "Friendship" or "Amish" Starters - which are a modern version of "starter" that includes using bakers' yeast along with flour and water. Starter "purests", flour/water ONLY - usually avoid the "modern" starter versions, but I say to each their own.... The bakers' yeast quickly dies out, and if you're lucky, naturally-occuring (aka wild) yeast will take over. In the book, "Sourdough Breads and Coffee Cakes" by Ada Lou Roberts, she has starter recipes for these starters, as well as recipes using them. She also includes a few homemade yeast recipes. -Grated Raw Potato Starter -Cooked Potato Starter -Peach Leaf Starter -Beer Starter -English Beer Starter -Hop Starter -Alaskan Sourdough Starter "Adventures in Sourdough Cooking & Baking" by Charles D. Wilford includes simple recipes for Primary Batter "A", and Primary Batter "B". Then there's the every popular, "World Sourdoughs From Antiquity" by Ed Wood. "CookWise" by Shirley O. Corriher includes information about: -Firm Sourdough Starter -Wet Sourdough Starter -Starter with Yeast -Sweet Yeast Starter I've found most types of starters I've made over the years can be used successfully in recipes that call for "starter". The differences come with hydration of the starters and the mixture of flour/water and any of a number of other ingredients used in them. But they all have the same thing in common, the naturally-occuring yeasts that make them work. When it comes to Sourdough English Muffins (and English Muffins in general), I cut my muffins - either with a circle cutter or to save time I'll cut them into squares with a pizza cutter (and eliminate second-cuts that are more tough than first-cuts), but I don't usually cut them with my English Muffin Rings. I've never made a "batter" English Muffin recipe, nor do I bake English Muffins with the ring around them. I bake them on an electric griddle without the ring. However, I bake Sourdough Crumpets on a griddle using 4 English Muffin Rings. It's a King Arthur recipe and one of the best uses for that 1-cup starter people toss. You can find the entire recipe in their recipe file entitled: Sourdough Crumpets Or How to Resurrect a Neglected Starter. Sourdough Crumpets (1 c. starter = 8 crumpets) Note: If you make 1 cup of starter into crumpet batter, place it in a 4-cup measuring cup (easy pouring), but the batter expands a LOT and you need that 4-cup volume. For each 1 cup of sourdough starter, sprinkle over the surface: 1 t. sugar 1/2 t. salt 1/2 t. baking soda Whisk these in thoroughly. Caution...the batter expands. On a pre-heated griddle (medium heat), place the greased rings. Fill rings with about 1/4-inch of batter and cook it over low heat until the tops are set and full of holes. Remove the rings and flip the crumpets over for a minute or two. After they've finished cooking, stockpile them on a cooling rack (don't stack them like pancakes, they stick together). When cool, pop them in a toaster or toaster oven to brown and crisp. Serve them with butter and jam. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: Sourdough Home

aptosca/Clare- -Be careful how much VWG you add. Too much will make the bread tough, not just give it loft, and it often takes longer to knead and develop the gluten the more you add. -Gluten absorbs moisture like a sponge, so you may also need to use less flour if you add VWG - so go by the "feel" of the dough and aim for a well-hydrated, soft dough. Stiff dry dough will make a dry, squatty loaf. Personally, I think you will get more loft by using King Arthur Baker's Special Dry Milk in an enriched loaf of bread, rather than adding VWG. Additional VWG is generally unnecessary if you use bread flour or even all-purpose flour. If you've never made rye bread before, rye flour in bread dough will cause the dough to be characteristically sticky, and because of this people tend to add too much flour during kneading (especially if the rye flour is 20% of the total amount of flour, or more) to off-set the stickness - a big no-no.... A simple way to solve this problem, if you are making the dough by hand, is by placing the dough in a large freezer zip-lock bag (use a freezer bag because the plastic is thicker and takes more "abuse" from kneading). Place the dough into the freezer-bag, press out as much air as possible before closing, and knead the dough while it's in the bag, from the outside of the bag (a la Bread-In-A-Bag - see link below). You can still adjust the hydration, but this should help keep from adding too much flour because the stickiness from the rye flour won't be sticking to your hands. There are also kneading gloves that can be used for sticky doughs, but a freezer zip-lock bag an easy fix (and probably less expensive). When the dough has been kneaded enough, press the dough into one corner of the bag; open the bag and turn it inside out to get the dough out. BTW - this is one bag you won't want to wash and save ;-). A mistake often made, and why the dough doesn't seem to raise as high as you'd like, is from using the wrong amount of dough for the pan size. This is also the cause of over- or under-proofing. As an example: if you make a recipe that makes 1-1/2-pounds of dough (about 3-cups of flour in the recipe) and place it in a 9x5" pan (which are generally designed to be used for loaves of quick breads), that's the wrong pan for that amount of dough - a standard-size loaf pan is a better choice - 8-1/2x4-1/2". Jumbo pan - 10x4-1/2" - approx. 4-5 c. flour - 2+ pounds of dough Quick Bread Pan - 9x5" - 4 c. flour - 2# dough Standard Loaf - 8-1/2x4-1/2" - 3 c. flour - 1-1/2# dough Medium Loaf - 7-1/2x3-1/2" - 2-1/2 c. flour - 1# dough Small Loaf - 5-3/4x3-3/4" - 1-1/2 c. flour - 8 oz. dough Here is a link that might be useful: Easy Yeast Breads In a Bag

I made my first loaf last night, and I really like the way it came out. I agree with Cheryl that the menu is a bit confusing, and I think I made the bread on the wrong setting, for size, at least. I forgot about the size setting when I was starting the machine, and I was making a medium (the smallest) loaf, which used a total of 3 cups of flour. I used the plain white bread recipe, substituted one cup of whole wheat flour plus two tablespoons of Vital Wheat Gluten, since I was using all purpose instead of bread flour, and so because of the whole wheat. The water was supposed to be 1-1/4 cups, but I used 1-1/3 cups because I thought the WW might need extra water, but otherwise I followed the recipe exactly. Well, I'm not sure I used the correct yeast - I have SAF yeast in the freezer, and so I just used that. It did not have a yeast flavor when it came out. It only slightly stuck, and so I used a plastic spatula to get it loose. I let it sit in the machine for about 10-12 minutes after the timer went off - not sure if I was supposed to do that, but the bread had a thick, somehwat hard, crust, which I like and prefer. I'm very happy with the loaf I made, although it does taste rather generic, but still much better than most WW bread I can buy. It's not as good as La Brea Bakery bread, but that is rather expensive, and this bread is an adequate substitute (except for the sourdough). The loaf came out lopsided, and so I will be making lopsided sandwiches, but I'm okay with that. I think it will also make good toast and French toast. Lars

* Posted by coconut-nj (My Page) on Sat, May 30, 09 at 11:27 Sally, anywhere that has alot of British imports would probably have it. I was checking out who had it online the other day and while you might not want 6 bottles of it.. smiles... Amazon has 6 bottles for $27.05. It's free shipping too. Most places sell it for between five and six or up to eight dollars, so that's a great price. They say they're 15 oz bottles. Maybe somebody else would want to go in on it with you?? I've always heard of it described as a mayo with more vinegar and also with a mustard taste. Sounds good. Smiles. My DW used it when she used to travel to the UK all the time for buisness. Surprised she didn't bring any back. I have a head of savoy cabbage so I'm going to make my easy 'stuffed' cabbage casserole that I described above. It makes it so easy and quick which is just what we want on a Saturday night. Steam the cabbage briefly, layer it with dirty rice, pour some tomato juice mixed with onion and garlic powder between layers and on top and bake for about 40 minutes. I'll see if I can manage to take a picture. I seem to be terrible at that. The camera is always in the other room and it's a kind of big house and by the time I'm done cooking I'm not walking very well. LOL.. We will see. Oh btw, I always make two dishes of this because Christy gets burnt out on "red" since I always have something made with red sauce around I make her a version with just some broth on it. I do stuffed peppers for her the same way. No red. I do love the red on it but prefer tomato juice since it's nice and light although I'll just water down tomato sauce or puree with chicken stock/broth, if I don't have any handy.