For the past month or so, I’ve been experimenting with a variety of flours in preparation of a Sourdough Bread Course that I will be offering soon. I’m trying to not be a perfectionist, but I really want everyone who takes my course to have success, so I am testing, testing, testing. The result, even for me, were some pretty epic fails (oops not fails, just unexpected outcomes), but fortunately I’ve found a way to re-use nearly everything. Hard bricks of bread become bread crumbs or croutons; bread that didn’t rise correctly becomes bread pudding or overnight french toast. I don’t believe in failing. The only failure occurs when we don’t try or don’t learn from the process.

One of the things that I’ve needed to learn to deal with, is all of the discarded sourdough starter. I mean, I’m testing about 7 types of flour, so there are jars lining our fridge with little labels on the top to distinguish one type from another. With so many recipes online, it’s not too difficult to find cracker and pancake recipes, but what I really wanted to create was a sourdough cookie that used a long fermentation period. I found a few recipes that used starter, but the other, added flours were not soured. This was something I needed to master.

In the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, there is a recipe for yogurt dough. We have used this several times to make pizza and calzone type pockets. Based off of that idea, I combined a yogurt dough with some discarded starter to create a true sourdough cookie recipe. Using lard as both a melted fat with which to incorporate the dry ingredients and also to knead through the dough, the resulting sourdough cookie is light, crispy, and delicious.

I used locally grown flours from Plain Farms here in Minnesota, but if those aren’t an option for you, Breadtopia has a nice selection of both heritage and ancient grains. Of course you are free to use whatever flours you like, but I chose these because of their rich, nutty flavors.