When Summer started, I was in a bit of a bind with all three girls home, needing lunch ideas, and not being able to as easily get to the store. Sandwiches are a bit of a go to around here, but the ingredients in store bought bread leave a little something to be desired. So what do you do when you are a mom of three young girls and you want to feed them the healthiest foods possible?

Enter in a bread machine! One thing that you must know about your yurt and summertime, is that if you do not have much shade, you do not have a real way to keep your yurt cool! The 20 acres gifted to us are on a field, and although we are close to the treeline, we don't really have shade coverage from the trees. If it is 80 degrees outside (even with an air conditioner running to remove humidity) it is still, at least, 80 degrees inside! Truly, the very last thing you want to do is heat your yurt up more by turning on your oven! Even if you are a purist bread maker, you won't balk at the idea of a bread machine to keep your yurt a little bit "cooler". Heating my oven in the middle of the day was not an option, but I really wanted to start making my own bread again, and I really wanted to start making Sourdough bread again!

If you bake Sourdough you, by default in my opinion, are more of a purist, and I had to really wrap my mind around the idea of making Sourdough in a bread machine, but by golly, I did it! A quick internet search will yield several Sourdough recipes specifically for bread machines. By mixing and matching a few recipes I have, mostly, conquered the bread machine Sourdough bread making process. I used to make Sourdough regularly before children, and in a typical house, with proper temperature control. But, after having children, the time commitment of making Sourdough bread felt daunting, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it! I eventually had to throw away my starter after sitting, literally, years in the fridge without even a feeding! I do not exaggerate! I had actually gotten a new starter, from a friend, over the winter and decided to try Sourdough again this summer! I will say this about the heat of a yurt in Summertime, and your starter ... YOU may not love the heat, but YOUR STARTER will!!

First things first, when it comes to Sourdough bread, your starter is your priority! It's like a newborn baby ... it wants to be fed now and often! And it likes to be kept comfy, cozy, and warm. I keep my starter in a glass Mason jar, and when I remove it from the fridge to feed it, I replace the jar with a clean one. I use the recipe below to make sure that my Sourdough is well taken care of! After I feed my starter I usually let it sit for about 6 hours or more to make sure that it is active and bubbly. This is where the summer heat in your yurt comes in REALLY handy! Mine usually rises to the top of the jar, and often overflows out of the jar! On colder days it has been harder to get my starter to become overly active. I have used the heat generated from a running fridge to keep the starter warm, by placing my jar up against the fridge, on the counter.  Other ways I have gotten my starter to activate better is to place my jar next to or on top of our pellet stove. In the winter I plan to experiment with placing the jar on our heated concrete floor (I'll keep you posted on how well that works)!

I always start my Sourdough baking at night (after my starter has fed for at least 6 hours and is bubbly and active), so that once my dough is mixed, it can sit overnight for 10 or more hours. I do this, because traditional Sourdough, when allowed to ferment longer makes it easier to digest. I own a Hamilton Beach Artisan Bread Maker and whatever recipe you use, I have found success by running the Dough cycle (setting #10) on my bread machine once, allowing the dough to rise over night, and after scraping the dough back into the pan in the morning, I run the Whole Grain Bread setting (#4). Once this process is finished (which takes approx. 20 hours) I usually end up with a medium sized loaf of soft Sourdough bread in the shape of my bread machine pan.

Because temperature control is difficult in a Yurt, you may not always end up with the most perfect loaf of bread, and that's okay! As my husband says, "It doesn't matter what it looks like, it always tastes great and it will get eaten!" With that said, if your yurt is too warm overnight, your dough will become far more liquidy, resulting in a denser loaf. Similarly, if your yurt is too cold overnight, your dough may not rise enough, and again result in a more dense loaf. This is where being willing to experiment with your bread machine, and different ways of allowing your dough to rise, can be helpful. I am learning that some things are simply out of my control (specifically the temperature) living in a yurt, but the Whole Grain Bread setting allows for a second mix and a second rise, which will help your loaf come out looking a little prettier 9 times out of 10.

Whatever recipe you choose and whatever process you end up using, you will not regret experimenting with Sourdough in your yurt!  Your loaf may not always be as soft or chewy as you might hope, but it always tastes great, and if you're looking for a healthier option, Sourdough is never a bad idea!