successful new sourdough recipe

I just baked a loaf of quite good sourdough, adapted from my normal recipe, and thought some of you might enjoy trying it, as I'm sure you have starter on hand.

I'll give you the regular recipe first, since the other is based on it. This makes one loaf of bread, which I usually bake in either a buttered loaf pan, or a buttered pie plate to form a round loaf.

The afternoon of the day before you plan to bake, feed your starter and have it at room temp so it will get nice and bubbly and active. Since I just keep mine at room temp all the time, it's not an issue for me. Now, before you go to bed that night, mix up the sponge by mixing 1/2 cup of starter with 3/4 cup of lukewarm water, and 1/2 cup of mashed potato. (I just use 1/2 cup hot water and instant potato flakes added in to make "mashed." This is the only thing I ever use the instant spuds for, but they work well for this.) Then mix in around a cup of flour -- I use whole wheat, although my starter is made with unbleached. You want to make a batter, not a dough.

Cover with some plastic wrap with a few little holes poked in, and leave overnight.

In the morning, mix in 3/8 cup lukewarm water, a ts of salt, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 soft butter or oil, and enough flour to make a soft, elastic, smooth dough, mixing first in the bowl and then on a floured board, kneading well. It will take somewhere around 3-4 cups.

Plop this into a buttered bowl and turn over to coat the top. Cover, let rise til doubled. It varies how long it will take. Sourdough can be slower than yeasted bread, although mine often rises in two hours or less. Punch it down, get out as many bubbles as you can, and shape into a loaf or a ball, and put into desired buttered pan. Cover again, let rise again, and bake in preheated 350 degree oven til done.

This makes a wonderful farmhouse bread, not a sourdough baguette type bread. For that, you need a different recipe and different method.

Now, what I wanted to play with today was trying to make a Portuguese (or Hawaiian) sweet bread with my sourdough. I made the sponge last night as usual, and this morning, made the dough as usual, except I added extra sugar (used 3/4 cup, slightly rounded) and added 1/4 cup powdered milk, 1 ts vanilla, 1 ts lemon extract (actually, I use emulsion, but extract will work), and 1 ts. orange extract/emulsion. I hadn't planned to do anything else to it, but my husband begged me to knead some fruit into it, so I added dried cherries and kneaded them in. (Those aren't usually in the Portuguese sweet bread, though.) Before baking, I beat an egg with a TB of water and brushed the loaf with egg wash, and baked as usual.

This turned out very well, and I thought maybe some of you would like to have a new recipe to try.