THE RECIPE JOURNAL

A soft, sandwich-ready sourdough loaf made with active starter, no commercial yeast, that slices clean and toasts beautifully.

This one takes patience, an overnight cold proof plus a shaping technique that turns the loaf into an actual pumpkin, twine and all, but the payoff is a cinnamon-swirled crumb with real pumpkin puree...

Laminating dough with an active starter instead of commercial yeast takes real patience, folds, chills, and a long proof, but it's what gives these croissants their tang along with the usual flake.

An overnight cold ferment is what gives these ciabatta rolls their open, airy crumb and crackling crust, the kind of texture that's hard to get without the long fermentation.

Sourdough starter goes straight into this pizza dough, and the topping combo, pesto, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, and a ranch drizzle at the end, is a departure from a standard red-sauce pie.

Twine wrapped around proofed dough before baking is the trick that shapes these into little pumpkins, a fun way to dress up a basic sourdough loaf for fall.

Same shaping method as the mini pumpkin loaves, sized up into bowls, bake them, hollow them out, and they're ready for soup or dip.

Stale sourdough loaf ends don't need to go to waste, dried and pulsed into breadcrumbs, they add more flavor than anything from a can.

Small sourdough rolls shaped into pumpkins and baked around a cube of Brie, the cheese melts into the crumb as it bakes.

Four ingredients, starter included, make up this pizza dough, with the fermentation doing a lot of the flavor work that yeast alone can't.

Whether you started your culture from scratch, bought one, or, like me, had a portion mailed to you by a family member, feeding it correctly is what keeps it alive and active. Here's how I do it.

Building a starter from nothing but flour and water takes about a week of daily feeding before it's ready to bake with, here's the process, one step at a time.