Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough Bread

A few posts ago I was going on and on about starting some new adventures in our kitchen using a sourdough starter. I was super keen on getting my hands dirty with my new starter and gaining some much needed experience. Once my starter had been fermenting for about 7 days, I decided to make some sourdough pancakes, which were good but hardly an adventure. Then I made a pie using a sourdough crust which definitely upped the ante a bit but wasn't ground breaking. But this bread right here?! This was a huge feat that required patience, endurance, and some confidence (even when you're not really feeling...confident)! 

This was really and truly a labor of love. I'm learning that if I'm going to continue to have a sourdough starter in my kitchen then I am going to have to commit. This loaf of bread took nearly 15 hours to complete, not including the 3 days I had to wait once I removed my starter from the fridge to get it back to working condition. I then had to feed my starter  and let it sit for 4 hours to get it back to it's bubbly, active state. Then, following this recipe, I did all the necessary steps to create the dough and let it rise for 5 hours. I'll tell you, it was so cool seeing dough rise and have air bubbles form using wild yeast that I have cultivated myself! I wasn't even sure if the dough would even rise, I had no faith that my starter would work...this is where that confidence needs to come in! 

Once I completed the first rise, I continued on in layering cinnamon, raisins, and maple syrup and shaping the dough into a loaf. I placed it in the loaf pan and let it rise for another 5 hours. That's right...5 MORE HOURS! The dough did rise the second time but not nearly as high as it needed to, resulting in my loaf being a little bit dense. But I still deemed it a success because the dough rose and I had a delicious loaf of bread to enjoy at the end of of this expedition. his first attempt was not perfect but it is something definitely worth celebrating! Plus, I wanted to document this first trial so that once I get better at using my starter I can look back and see how far I've come. I plan on getting in plenty of practice is active dry yeast is no where to be found in the aisle of the grocery stores! Off to make some sourdough dinner rolls for tomorrow's dinner....happy baking!

xo
Janine