a post-vaccine life motto i’ve adopted: seek more opportunities to turn ordinary moments into special ones.

i buy all the flowers at the farmers market stand as it closes and cover every surface of my apartment with them. i lug bushels of apples home to make apple crisp in batches, dropping in on my friends on a random tuesday for a special delivery. i thrift a red dress that makes me feel like the 💃🏻 emoji, muster all the main-character-energy i can, and stroll around nyc in it without a so-called occasion.

i find myself delighting in the ability to infuse this everyday magic into the familiar, worn grooves of routine, in a way i have never felt before.

there is something that feels so fun, so dramatic, so extra about decorative sourdough.

unlike a cake, bread isn’t often thought of as pretty. maybe that’s why i’m even more appreciative of those who have made sourdough an art.

it’s decorative gourd season y’all. let’s make sourdough pumpkins!

notes

i’ve wanted to try this pumpkin shaping ever since i saw it on my instagram feed last year.

my variations:

• added a dash of turmeric for additional color in the dough, and subtle flavor
• saved and dried a butternut squash nub to top the final loaf for additional flourish
• included actual pumpkin puree during the autolyse for the full pumpkin effect

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

i’ve always considered dill to be a second tier herb.

my mother cooked with a multitude of herbs, often, even growing chives and green onions in our backyard.

during peak harvest times, my mother would cook nothing but chives for weeks at a time — chive dumplings, chive bao zi, chive pockets. she fed it all to my brother and i until we became bloated from the fiber.

dill just never had a place in my pantry. never harmonized with the warming notes of our rotation of ginger, star anise, and chilis, never made it into our cart during our biweekly trips to shanghai supermarket.

in the past few months, however, i’ve been flirting a lot with dill. a dill-less salad now feels naked, like it’s missing an ingredient as crucial as the lettuce itself. i’ll never leave another PLS ungarnished.

above all, i’ve become hooked on the combination of cheese and dill after trying a roll from la farine.

with the feedback of over seven taste testers, i’ve developed a delicate, puffy, pizza-crust like roll that similarly centers cheddar and dill.

this roll has a crisp and thin crust, encrusted with thinly shredded cheddar and speckled with fresh dill. bready walls surround a small divet where the cheddar pools and bubbles. when you bite in, it’s like eating a sauceless, herby micro pizza.

no matter where you are in your relationship with dill, these rolls will make you fall in love all over again. bread and cheese tend to have that kind of effect.

notes

the secret to the perfect texture and bite is using olive oil instead of flour while shaping! it is of utmost importance that you use as little flour as possible during this step!

i encourage swapping the dill for chives or scallions for a different flavor profile. in fact, i’ve tested this with scallions and the result is just as wonderful (see the three rolls in the left corner of the cover photo).

though i haven’t tried it, gruyere could also be a nice cheese accompaniment to the dill.

if your cheddar is on the saltier side, i would skip the extra salt. the cheddar i used was pretty mild.

as always, my starter is 80% hydration. please adjust the dough formula to match your starter. all timing and schedules are suggestions. i developed this recipe in springtime san francisco kitchen at about 74°F.

baker’s percentage & sample timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

the last time i lived close to wilderness, i was 11. i had a patch of wood in my backyard. a small, trickling creek ran through it. wild turkeys, the size of vacuum cleaners, would often visit.

life whisked me away to more and more urban areas until life found me in the berkeley hills this winter. here, i once again remembered what it was to notice.

how to greet the bickering crows. how to spectate the scurrying squirrels. how to pay attention, in wonder.

at least once a week, too, i would walk down the street to ascend a steep, winding dirt trail above claremont canyon. what started as a simple hike became a stumbling prayer of gratitude.

i learned to recognize the wild rosemary bushes near the top. i began to visit often. when the bushes looked healthy and weren’t flowering, i would pick a few sprigs, taking home a piece of the mountain with me.

when the world gifts something as magical as fresh, wild rosemary, what else is there to do but to share something with the world in return? how do we show gratitude for gifts such as these?

this recipe is my offering. perhaps you, too, will pause when your hands run over the sprigs of rosemary, and when you smell it filling up the crevices of your home.

this ritual has become my small, delicious meditation on all the magic that grows from the earth. i hope it becomes yours too.

notes

i wasn’t planning on re-visiting sourdough crackers. i’ve already written two recipes.

yet i knew there were a few issues i needed to resolve: dryness, thickness, toughness of bite, blandness. this updated recipe addresses all these shortcomings with a wetter, more flavorful dough.

these sourdough rosemary crackers roll out into thin sheets more easily, and bake up more crisply. i am generous with the rosemary. they are pretty, they are aromatic, and they are delicious.

ingredients matter.

• i strongly encourage you to use fresh rosemary over dried, and flaky salt to top.
• i haven’t tried adding other herbs or spices, but i encourage experimentation!
• one exception: if you plan on adding seeds, nuts, or other chunkier toppings, i’d recommend adding it at the end, while rolling out the dough rather than mixing it in. revisit my everything cracker recipe for more details on this process.

lastly but not leastly, i have a stiff starter at 80% hydration. please do adjust the amount of flour if yours differs.

i ended last year hung up on three things.

the first: a boy (isn’t it always?). quarantine fact: break ups are much, much harder during a global pandemic when there is not much else to do except sit on a rollercoaster ride of uncomfortable feelings and thought patterns.

the second: brooklyn. seeking proximity to family and an escape from the impending winter, i left new york. quarantine fact: there’s nothing like cinematic nostalgia to leave you on the ground curled up in a blanket burrito, sobbing. watching dash & lily destroyed me.

last, but certainly not least: my beloved arizmendi cheese rolls. back in august, i had scoured the internet for the recipe. i had racked my brain for the taste profile of the cheese. quarantine fact: i had tasted cheesy, bready greatness and i could not go back.

luckily, when i moved last month i discovered cheeseboard, arizmendi’s sister bakery. needless to say, i have since consumed many a cheese roll. luckily, this also had the happy side effect of mitigating the first two aforementioned hang ups. a small sacrifice in the name of research.

after much neighborly taste testing, i’m confident this formula produces a remarkable likeness to the original cheese roll, with improvements. i feel i’m doing a similar type of analysis and reconstruction for the other parts of my life. basking in the sunny, warm winter days. reconnecting with old friends over focaccia. trekking through miles of redwood forest.

i’m not saying these cheese rolls have magically cured my afflictions, though i notice progress everyday.

all i’m saying is this. if even one person is spared from the sadness that is a life without cheese rolls, then my work here will have been worth it.

notes

as always, please adjust the formula based on the hydration of your starter, and adjust the timing of the bulk rise based on the temperature of your kitchen. please treat all times listed below as a sample schedule. this recipe was developed during the winter, in a 60 degree kitchen at 50% humidity.

you might be tempted to use a different type of cheese. i strongly recommend you resist this urge. asiago cheese just hits different. i repeat. these rolls will not have the intended flavor without asiago.

as per my other experiences baking with cheese, parchment paper is a must! melty cheese can easily crust over.

this recipe preserves all of the loveability of these iconic rolls while also providing a softer bite, lighter texture, and smaller size. i’m especially excited about this recipe, and i hope you all will be too.

baker’s percentage & sample timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

long, lazy summer days call for simple, produce-centric meals.

i love spending weekends gobbling up as many colors as i can. heirloom tomatoes topped with flaky sea salt. watermelon with handfuls of fresh mint. cucumbers with avocado and dill.

what are your favorite farmers market finds? summer squash is one of mine.

every june, zucchini and its friends burst onto the farm stand and backyard garden scene in abundance. i love cooking them with eggs, putting them in dumpling filling, and baking them into quick breads. i have delicious memories of my grandma cooking them up with noodles for a breakfast noodle soup.

lately, i’ve renewed my love for zucchini in the form of fritters.

crispy and light on the outside, full of oniony and garlicy goodness on the inside. i like to serve them hot, sometimes with a dollop of cold yogurt. for extra fancy summertime vibes, i garnish with some freshly picked herbs.

best of all, they’re super simple and super fast. this verison is also completely vegan thanks to sourdough discard.

notes

the final batter is fairly thick. to reduce the wateriness of the zucchini, i include two additional steps.

• first, adding salt in the beginning will draw water out of the zucchini.
• second, squeezing the water out will prevent the batter from becoming too runny. if your final batter still seems too watery or loose, just stir in a bit more flour.

as always, please adjust the recipe to suit your starter’s hydration. as a reminder, i have a stiff starter at 80% hydration.

although you could bake these fritters, i strongly recommend frying them. in my experiments, they tasted way better, and the crispiness can’t be beat.

but you probably already knew i was gonna say that 😉

we could all use a little more comfort in our lives right now, even in the blistering heat of summer. for me, no other food combination spells out comfort more than cheese and carbs.

this loaf deliciously combines the best of both worlds. the savory creaminess from the melted cheese comes in sporadic pockets, with the subtle spiciness from the black pepper running throughout.

this cheese and black pepper combo has easily become one of my favorites.

notes

as always, please adjust the formula based on the hydration of your starter, and adjust the timing of the bulk rise based on the temperature of your kitchen. this recipe was developed during the summer, in a 80 degree kitchen. please add an hour during the shoulder months, and two hours in winter months.

i used mccormick’s ground black pepper to develop this recipe, which i found to be fairly weak in flavor. i liked the flavor better at 2.5%, which for a 400 g flour loaf was 10 g of black pepper. i did not try this with freshly cracked black pepper. if you do bake this with freshly cracked black pepper which usually carries a stronger flavor, please be sure to reduce the amount.

cubing a block of cheese yourself is the secret to melty cheese pockets! shredded cheese will not yield the same effect. i like to use sharp, white cheddar cheese, but i bet a similar type of cheese would work just as well.

parchment paper is important here because the cheese will melt and get stuck to your dutch oven! that being said, the parchment paper might also get stuck to the loaf due to melted cheese. peel and scrape it off before enjoying.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

although my korean food journey began with bowls of stone pot bibimbap in restaurants, i owe the bulk of my learning and appreciation to my korean friends. i have many happy memories of cooking for each other, swapping recipes from our childhoods and stories of our mothers.

those who are fans of my sourdough discard okonomiyaki know i’m a lover of savory pancakes. i’ve adapted this kimchi pancake recipe from maangchi, a true cooking legend. instead of flour and water, sourdough starter discard acts as the primary binder.

the tangy, funky, sourdough discard pairs beautifully with the tangy, funky kimchi. with only 8 ingredients and a 3 minute cook time, these pancakes are super easy, quick, and fun to make.

bonus: they’re vegan! just be sure to grab a vegan kimchi like sinto gourmet or chi kitchen. most store bought brands have seafood of some sort. you can also make it yourself if you’re feeling bold.

notes

the texture of this batter should resemble pancake batter. if it feels runny, add in all purpose flour until it reaches a firmer consistency.

this batter makes enough for two 8″ pancakes. feel free to modify the size of your pancakes! smaller ones will be easier to flip.

lastly, please adjust the recipe to suit your starter’s hydration. i have a stiff starter at 80% hydration. for help, my sourdough hydration math post and calculator explains how to calculate adjustments.

as a quick example, if your starter is 100%, the batter may come out too runny! to adjust, decrease sourdough discard amount to 130 g, and add an additional 20 g of all purpose flour.

i wish i could say that perusing the olive and cheese selection at the park slope food coop is what inspired me to make this loaf, but alas. i must confess i made this loaf because i once loved a man who really, really loved olives.

he didn’t live in new york (or even in this country), and for some reason i got it in my head that if only he tried a piece of this bread, he would consider moving brooklyn. yes, the loaf was truly that tasty.

a year has gone and passed since then. my hypothesis was never tested, as our relationship was too short-lived for him to try this bread.

luckily, this recipe lives on.

salty, tangy, always leaving you wanting more. feed this to all the lovers and olive lovers in your life. please do let me know if it has the intended effect 😉

notes

be sure to buy pre-pitted olives! i most certainly, definitely am not including this because i learned this the hard way heh (but seriously, de-pitting them was a n00b lesson you will now not have to repeat).

for lamination videos, check out my guava cream cheese post or @fullproofbaking.

my regular batch of caveats: please be wary of starter hydration and seasonal timing adjustments (for me it means about +1 hr in the summer, and about -1 hr in the winter).

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

my earliest meaningful memory of pizza is of waiting in line with my mother at papa murphy’s take and bake, bogo coupon in hand, ordering two supreme pizzas. then, there was the costco food stand. our family of 4 would pile into the car, do our shopping, walk out with the largest supreme pizza available, and eat the leftovers over the next few days.

if there’s one thing my mother believed in, it was value. getting anything short of whatever gave you the most amount of toppings was unthinkable. and thus, i was raised on a string of supreme pizzas.

then, the singular experience at 17 that redefined pizza for me: a classic margherita from punch pizza.

for one, it was a topping-less pizza. i remember it coming out, the bare cheese staring back at me, bits of tomato sauce peeking through, naked, like it forgot to put its clothes on.

second, we each got our own individual pizza, as if one entire pizza was an acceptable serving size my parents conveniently forgot to mention to me, a young susceptible mind and a very hungry almost adult.

but most importantly, it was nothing like i had tasted before. the thin base, the wood fired flavor, the satisfying chew of the crust. it was hard for me to believe that we lived in a world where the pizza i knew and loved could coexist with this new pizza i didn’t know and quickly became infatuated with.

i’ve had way more pizza memories than i’d like to admit over this past decade of pizza discovery and re-discovery. pizza seems to hold the constant of re-inventing itself for me just as i keep re-inventing myself.

my newest favorite way to eat pizza is to make a big batch of dough, invite a small group of friends over, and make a couple of pizzas together while we catch up. it’s as collaborative as it is creative, as easy as it is fast, as humble as it is impressive.

i hope these will soon become your favorite pizza memories too.

notes

i have a stiff starter that’s 80% hydration. please adjust amount of water in final dough to account for your starter’s hydration.

we might not get to gather in groups again for a while, but luckily this dough keeps well for a few days in the fridge. in fact, this dough needs a long cold proof. you’ll find it becomes easier to work with and the flavors become more complex the longer it’s been in the fridge. it bakes up quick enough to make for a reasonably achievable weekday work from home lunch.

pizza like this does its best baking at very high temps. unfortunately most home ovens don’t go as high as commercial ones. just crank it to as high as it will go, and make sure your oven is clean. i may or may not have set off my smoke detector at least 5 times over the course of 3 bakes.

this recipe makes enough dough for 3 – 12″ skillet-sized pizzas or 4 – 9″ skill-sized pizzas. scale up or down as needed. i can pretty easily eat an entire one of these.

this recipe is just for the crust. some toppings inspiration:

• du’s: mozz, caramelized onions, roasted garlic, spinach. to prevent burnt ends, put the caramelized onions on post bake or hide beneath spinach. drizzle with honey & chili flakes right before serving.
• margherita: tomato sauce & mozz. put basil on right before serving.
• tie dye: ricotta & mozz, tomato sauce & pesto
• shakshuka: tomato sauce, egg, mozz, feta. top with pepper and arugula post bake

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

if you’re like me and love baking bread just as much as you love eating bread, you might occasionally have the unique, and frankly excellent, problem of sometimes being in possession of perhaps, too much bread (writing this pains me because i’d like to defend that there is no such thing as too much bread, particularly sourdough bread).

over the past few years, in addition to baking slightly smaller loaves and finding more people to share my freshly baked bread with, i’ve developed a few strategies to maximize my bread consumption and to salvage aging (or failed heh) loaves — what else is a carb-loving eco-conscious nerd to do?

1. pre-slice & freeze half

i’ve found that the shelf life of homemade sourdough is around 3 days, though the crust begins to lose its characteristic crunch much sooner than that.

let this be a game changer: you can freeze your bread, and re-toast it to revive the same texture.

i like to pre-slice the portion of the loaf i plan to freeze into toastable sizes, and then store them in a freezer bag. when i’m ready to eat, i just pull out slices one by one and pop them in the toaster on a medium-high setting. when they pop out, they’re crispy on the edges and soft in the center.

you’re welcome.

2. give your bread a second life

sometimes my sourdough gets stale sooner than i’d like. in these cases i give it a second act: savory bread pudding, french toast using day-old guava cream cheese sourdough, or my current favorite — sourdough croutons. like discard focaccia, the recipe is simple while the possibilities for flavor combos are limitless.

this recipe is vaguer than my other ones. just like okonomiyaki is a way to eat a bunch of delicious sauces, i feel like croutons are simply a vehicle to get flavor profiles you want on a very crisp vehicle.

sub olive oil for melted butter for a richer flavor. add whatever flavorings you want. i like a generous amount of italian seasoning and garlic powder. sometimes a bit of parmesan cheese if i’m feeling fancy.

cut toss bake enjoy repeat. i hope this encourages you to love your day-old bread just as much as you love your fresh-out-of-the-oven crackling loaf!

the wonderfully talented caroline schiff reminded me recently that that frying up sourdough discard on its own makes for a pretty damn tasty pancake. this, of course, had me dreaming of all the savory pancakes i’ve loved in my life and how to recreate them.

okonomiyaki, a japanese savory pancake made predominantly out of cabbage, is one of my favorites. it’s customizable, crisp, chewy, dangerously easy, disproportionately delicious, and very, very, pretty. i think of it as a relatively healthy conduit to eat a bunch of sauces i always want excuses to eat.

cabbage also happens to be one of the heartiest vegetables and lasts forever (at least in quarantine time), so of course i have an unreasonable amount now stocked up in my apt during this pandemic. wishing i could hop on a plane get myself to japan this spring, but this pancake will have to do.

notes

the toppings i’ve listed are mere suggestions. feel to top with whatever you have on hand, and whatever you find delicious. ketchup or kimchi works just as well as sriracha or chili crisp.

maybe cabbage and carrots aren’t your thing. that’s ok. feel free to throw in other vegetables or scallions in you have on hand that have similar texture to substitute (daikon, broccoli stems, etc.) for a non-traditional, but likely still delicious savory pancake.

other additions: for the non-vegetarians, kenji says you also fry it in some pork belly or bacon, and top with dried bonito flakes. for an eggier pancake, add an additional egg and 50 g additional veggies.

i’ve made these the size of a regular pancake or the traditionally larger size, either works. remember that the larger the pancake, the harder it will be to flip!

growing up, my mother made dumplings from scratch at least once a month. she always purposely made extra dumpling dough, and with the remains, we’d make scallion pancakes, often without the scallions.

a thing to know about my mom: whenever my mom makes anything, she always guesstimates. “eyeballing”, she would say, is the chinese way.

unfortunately, i don’t have my mother’s eyeballs. maybe it’s that i’ve absorbed a more western (?) philosophy, finding mostly comfort and curiousity in the precision of baking. thus, most of my adult life has been a journey to furiously scribble down measurements whenever i can and whenever my mom will let me pull out my tools to take weights or temperatures or to ask more questions than necessary.

the first recipe i managed to write down correctly was one for scallion pancakes. i was 17 and in college and really craving something other than our student center’s tofu teriyaki when i emailed home for some ratios. after some trial and error and tweaking, i finally got a version that had the same texture as my mothers.

this recipe is a sourdough discard adaptation of that original recipe.

notes

i have a stiff starter that’s 80% hydration. please adjust amount of water in final dough to account for your starter’s hydration.

these are pretty traditional scallion pancakes. for a fluffy version characteristic of northern china, check out my leavened, fluffy sourdough discard scallion pancake recipe.

if you read the introductory paragraph, you’ll realize that you can use this dough formula to make dumpling wrappers as well! i’d recommend letting the dough rest for an extra hour or two before cutting and rolling out.

this recipe makes one single-serving pancake. feel free to double and triple as you please.

the shaping technique described in this recipe optimizes for distinct layers. you can also use the roll & snail technique found in my other scallion pancake recipe for a more traditional swirl aesthetic.

bonus non-gluten side salad recipe

i sometimes like to serve this with a traditional cucumber salad. the slight tang from the sourdough with the sourness of the black vinegar is a winning combo in my book. the sauce that sits at the bottom ends up being a great dipping sauce.

slice up one cucumber, mince 2-3 cloves of garlic, throw in a couple good glugs of black vinegar, a sprinkle of salt, and a spoonful of extra crunchy peanut butter (optional). shake or toss or mix until all ingredients combined. drizzle with sesame oil to top, and serve immediately.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

i’ve been making a lot of focaccia recently. it seems like the entire world is stress baking along with me as a result of coronavirus.

my covid-19 experience thus far has been rocky: i’ve been away from my home and home kitchen this past month as part of a residency program in a different part of brooklyn. i definitely wasn’t expecting to face a once-in-a-lifetime, once-in-a-century global pandemic in not-my-home with not-my-family in the now-global-epicenter, but hey, here we are, and this too, shall pass.

as a result of the unfamiliarity, i’ve been revisiting old recipes that bring me comfort, like this sourdough discard focaccia. i’ve made this specific flavor combination four times this past week and plan to make it many more times this week to pull me through what i can only describe as shared global grief and trauma. i’ve loaded this focaccia with so many of my favorite things: heavy with ricotta, so much so that it tastes quite like a white pizza, generously topped with caramelized onions.

it feels almost luxurious to be able to eat this during a time of crisis, especially when i consider the additional luxury i have to be able to work from home. i keep telling myself that it’s ok to enjoy and appreciate and be grateful for the tiny beautiful things.

so bake this and share it with your loved ones. feed this to those you live with. tell them they mean something to you. don’t hold back on the cheese. don’t hold back on the drizzle. don’t hold anything back at all.

wishing all of you and your communities lots of love, connection, safety, health — and a lot, a lot of bread.

notes

the dough used in this recipe is the exact same formula as my sourdough discard focaccia, but i’ve simplified it a bit. my original recipe uses einkorn flour, but i’ve found i can really use any non-white flour in its stead (though einkorn flour still produces my favorite texture).

i’ve also just defaulted the hydration to 80% and a 12 hour bulk time, given that i’ve found higher hydration and a long bulk time yield a jigglier dough and better structured crumb.

i often double this recipe and make two batches at once. increase the bake time slightly if you’re going to be baking multiple pans or a larger focaccia. the shape of the pan won’t matter too much, but the size does. i usually like to use a pan that is just slightly bigger than my stretched out focaccia.

focaccia is like sourdough’s super chill, completely unfussy sister that pulls everything off without even trying. you know the type — the ones that throw their hair up in a bun without having to check their reflection, throw on a jacket that’s just laying about, and still manages to bounce out the door looking effortlessly cool.

some days i want making bread to feel like this too, and on those days i make focaccia. throw everything together, go to sleep, and in the morning, poof, without having to really even think, out comes this miraculously delicious, beautiful thing.

think it’s too good to be true? let’s make it even better. this sourdough focaccia recipe is leavened with sourdough starter discard.

you’re welcome 🙂

notes

i have a stiff starter that’s 80% hydration. please adjust amount of water in final dough to account for your starter’s hydration.

you might realize you like a different thickness of focaccia than the one described here. a 10×10 inch brownie-ish or cake pan for this quantity of dough will give you a focaccia that just fills the crevices. for a thicker focaccia, use a smaller pan or scale up your dough. i use a pan where the dough doesn’t quite reach the edges and get a thinner focaccia i personally really enjoy. tldr; use what you got!

if you find your focaccia is sticking to the pan or worry it might, a few readers have recommended using parchment paper in addition to oil.

though this recipe tastes great on its own, it is also very adaptable to include whatever toppings you wish and enjoy on focaccia. a few suggestions:

• roasted garlic: roast 1-2 heads of garlic. dimple in the garlic before adding salt and additional olive oil.
• zataar: after dimpling and after drizzling olive oil and salt, sprinkle a handful of zataar. drizzle another bit of olive oil on top.
• veggies: slice a couple handfuls of raw grape or cherry tomatoes in half, and some red onion and peppers into slivers. dimple in the veggies before adding salt and additional olive oil.
• grapes: dimple in a couple handfuls of grapes before adding salt and additional olive oil.
• rosemary: top with a few sprigs of rosemary at the end.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

*you can sub einkorn flour with whole wheat, or all purpose flour

🧧 happy lunar new year!!! 🧧

this past friday marked the beginning of the two week holiday period known as spring festival 春节, a huge celebration in mainland china to usher in the new year. festivities often include extravagant amounts of delicious food, a lot of quality family time, and even more echos of wishing each other health, happiness, and prosperity.

as a kid, my family used to gather with a few other chinese families in the greater twin cities area for a celebratory potluck dinner, where each family would bring their specialty dish, taking pride in their regional cuisine. raised in northern china where the food is more wheat based (rather than rice), my mom was known for her dumplings and flatbreads.

the apple don’t fall far from the tree i guess.

this recipe is a way to share a piece of my mother’s cooking and pride in our region. i adapted her yeasted scallion pancake 发面葱油饼 (fa mian cong you bing) recipe to use sourdough discard, and fell in love with the result. soft & fluffy on the inside with a perfectly umami laden & crispy exterior, this is a perfect way to get every last bit of leavening power from your sourdough starter discard.

notes

i went through a lot of trial and error with this recipe.

• some variations that were successful: i’ve used discard both at room temp and straight out of the fridge. the water temperature listed in the recipe below is for discard straight out of the fridge. for room temp you can use water 90-95°F.
• some that were less successful: this dough at a lower hydration doesn’t achieve the lightness we want, and the dough at a higher hydration becomes hard to roll out. i’d recommend sticking to 54-56%
• i didn’t test an overnight refrigerated proof at all, but that could be interesting to experiment with.

importantly, i use discard from a stiff levain. please tweak flour and water proportions to accommodate for your levain’s hydration. as an example calculation:

• my starter is 80% hydration with a 5:4:1 ratio of flour to water to starter. this means that 50g of starter is composed of about 28g flour and 22g water (or if you’re real nerdy like me, 50g = x + 0.8x, solve for x)
• if your starter is 100% hydration (1:1:1 ratio), that means that 50g of starter is composed of 25g of flour and 25g of water. so to match the recipe, add 3g more flour and 3g less water. ta-da!

i also wrote a blog post about this math with a few helpful calculator tools!

lastly, if you enjoyed this, i’d so appreciate you taking a second to rate and leave a comment all the way at the bottom. i love hearing feedback and it brings me so much joy to know you’re making this recipe!

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

these crackers were born out of resourcefulness and convenience. after making my everything sourdough bread, i took the extra starter discard and made my basic cheesy cracker (like usual). then thinking nothing of it, i rolled the dough in the everything seasoning i had leftover.

little did i know that these crackers would become, by far, the most addicting thing i have ever baked. i have seen my friends demolish jars of these in one sitting. i have seen myself demolish jars of these in one sitting.

if you’re interested in witnessing the same progression of events, please proceed.

you’ve been warned.

notes

this recipe is shockingly simple for the flavor it delivers. there’s plenty of salt in the everything seasoning mix, which omits the need to add it directly to the crackers (i tried it once, and it was like the equivalent of eating double strength sea water).

to get an even distribution of everything seasoning, generously sprinkle the everything seasoning on the surface you plan to roll the dough on, and then directly roll the dough into the seasoning.

you can buy everything seasoning from the store or use the ratios i use for a DIY mix. the formula i’ve included will leave you with extra everything seasoning you can use for your next batch of crackers.

the proportions i’ve specified will make exactly one cookie sheet pan worth of crackers. this recipe can be easily doubled, tripled, etc. to satisfy any further cracker cravings.

the secret to the perfect cracker is rolling these thin enough to get a satisfying snap, but not so thin that it’s a chip. think wheat thin level thinness.

we are officially in the thicket of winter, which for most people means a miserable period of darkness and coldness and wetness and <insert your other gloomy adjectives of choice>.

but from misery breeds opportunity i say! an opportunity to indulge and find comfort in all the warm, lovely carbohydrates. an opportunity to crank your oven up to the highest setting and to hover by it as the aromas and heat waft out of the kitchen.

that doesn’t so bad right?

this recipe for seeded sourdough is perfect for those who, like me, also reach for heartier, darker whole grains during the winter. packed with flavor and seeds, serve this loaf warm with a thick slab of butter or with your favorite instant pot stews.

notes

at first glance, the hydration might seem alarmingly high (85%), but the wheat flour absorbs it all and yields an extensible, pliable dough that isn’t sticky or hard to work with. i promise.

i’ve added a hefty portion of rye in addition to the whole wheat to add even more depth of flavor and to balance out water absorption a bit. when i think of my favorite seeded loaves (mostly dutch and german breads), rye is always there.

lastly, the seeds i’m using in the recipe are merely suggestions — i’ve opted for pumpkin, sunflower, hemp, and fennel seeds (the fennel in particular adds a beautiful flavor and i’d highly recommend if you are a fennel fan), but feel free to use whatever fits your fancy. i would recommend 40g of larger seeds and 20g of smaller seeds.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

my only childhood bagel experiences were the day old, half priced bruegger’s asiago bagels my friends and i would sneak out of statistics class to buy at our high school cafeteria. when i moved to nyc, i entered the bagel mecca itself, and oh i had much. to. learn.

i learned not to toast the good ones (the sacrilege!).

i learned that pumpernickel had no association with leprechauns (ok but doesn’t it conjure up the image?).

i learned that the bagel could, and should, be used as a vehicle to consume many other delicious things, like peanut butter, or smoked salmon, or scallion cream cheese (but absolutely no vegetables allowed except for red onions, nuh uh).

this sourdough is an homage to nyc, my home for the last 4 years. it’s encrusted with the everything seasoning we know and love, with a higher percentage of rye and spelt for that familiar tang.

for maximal stickiness, cover the sticky dough with the seasoning post-shape and pre-flour. if you find the seasoning falling off, you can try wetting it a little bit before covering the dough with seasoning by spraying a bit of water.

peanut butter and jelly. apples and cheddar. chocolate milk shakes and fries. these are the three iconic sweet savory duos from my american childhood.

as i’ve had the opportunity to travel and try new foods in the past 10 years, i’ve discovered a variety of other iconic sweet savory duos: tahini and date spread in israel, matcha and red bean in asia, guava and cream cheese in latin america — the inspiration behind this lovely loaf.

guava is a small tropical fruit, with a light green waxy exterior and a soft, seeded, pink interior, with a texture similar to a soft pear. guava paste tastes kinda like strawberry jam with a hint of pear, and is usually sold in rectangular brick form. thankfully, this makes it way easier to cube.

the savory from the cream cheese beautifully counteracts the sweetness from the guava, all of which is encompassed in a soft, fluffy bread.

best enjoyed on its own as a dessert, snack, or breakfast. be prepared to audibly react to the deliciousness. don’t sleep on this pro-tip: makes for an amazing base for french toast after a couple of days.

notes

i use king arthur bread flour, trader joe’s all purpose, bob’s red mill rye, and farmer ground flour einkorn. i got guava paste from food bazaar, but it’s also available on amazon.

please adjust your levain and bulk times for when your kitchen is colder or warmer, about 1 hour more during the winter and 1 hour less during the summer.

i’ve included a video of the lamination technique, using @fullproofbaking’s lamination method.

baker’s percentage & basic timetable

the percentages for water and flour only account for the final dough build, and do not include the levain formula build.

*can sub einkorn for whole wheat