1850's AUTHENTIC/ORIGINAL HEIRLOOM TEXAS RANCH SOURDOUGH STARTER + FREE RECIPES

Description

1850’s Heirloom South Texas (King) Ranch Sourdough Starter
In early 1854 Richard King, the founder of the famous King Ranch of South Texas decided to go south of the border into northern Mexico in search of cattle to purchase for his sprawling ranching empire. Northern Mexico was in a severe drought and ranchers there were unable to find enough grass to feed their cattle. So King went to the village of Cruillas in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, about 125 miles south of the border to see about buying some cattle. The villagers had no way to feed their cattle during the drought so they willingly sold all their cattle to King. After the long cattle drive north to the King Ranch, Richard King later returned to Cruillas and offered the villagers work on his ranch in exchange for a place to live, an income, food, and a chance at a new life in South Texas. Many of the villagers accepted his offer and moved their families to the King Ranch. The King Ranch is a whopping 825,000 acres!
Among the few possessions that the villagers brought with them to their new home was their ‘pan de masa fermentada’, or what we know as sourdough bread. This sourdough starter was what the women of Cruillas used to bake their traditional bread in the village communal adobe-brick oven. Unless a family had a hearth in their kitchen, this type of bread was only found in villages that had a communal oven. Otherwise every household would also make fresh corn tortillas daily.
It is believed that the original sourdough starters found in colonial Mexico came from France during the 1820's and 1830's when many French settlers were arriving to Mexico. To this day, French bread is part of the Mexican cuisine throughout Mexico.
In the 1860’s my great-great grandmother was given some of the ‘masa fermentada’ starter from a woman from Cruillas that now lived with her family on the ranch, and in turn, my great-grandmother was given some of the starter. On Saturday mornings my great-grandmother would get up real early to bake loaves to sell in town. She would take the wagon into town with her fresh-baked loaves of bread and would sell out immediately.
The old photo is of my grandmother's mother(my great-grandmother) and next to her is my grandfather's mother at the ranch.
The starter was eventually passed down to my grandmother who married my grandfather, a cowboy on another South Texas ranch. My dad was born in 1919 on the ranch where my grandparents worked and lived. Through my dad, I Eventually inherited some of my grandmother’s original sourdough starter. This old sourdough starter goes back over 160 years to the days when Texas was still part of the Wild-West!
Back on the ranch the bread was baked in the kitchen’s stone hearth, right on the brick floor. When the cowboys were out on the range working cattle, the bread was baked in old cast-iron Dutch ovens over mesquite coals. I still have several of my great-great-grandmother's Dutch ovens that are over 150 years old that I use to bake my bread! When I don’t have the time to make the bread over a bed of hot coals I use my Dutch ovens to bake my sourdough bread in my kitchen oven for an equally delicious result!
My grandmother always kept her active starter in a small clay pot in her old wooden ice-box, as she didn’t have a refrigerator on the ranch until much later. She would also make some of the starter into a stiff dough and let it dry into a hard patty, similar to hard-tack, which would keep forever. If she ever needed to make more fresh starter she would grate some of the dry patty and bring it back to life all over again. My grandmother would re-start her dried starter with water, wheat flour, some raw sugar, or brown sugar, cane syrup or molasses, or just plain sugar, whatever she had on hand. I recommend using dark or light brown sugar or turbinado sugar if you have some, otherwise plain cane sugar is fine.
This starter produces a great-tasting bread with a wonderful aroma, a crunchy crust, and a soft, chewy inside!
You can also add assorted whole grains, nuts, and seeds to the dough as well to make it even more special to your taste. In my favorite sourdough recipe I use 1/3 whole-wheat flour and 2/3 bread-flour. As a wine-maker and home-brewer for many years, I can say that nothing goes better with a glass of home-brew or wine than a crusty piece of this 1850’s Heirloom Sourdough bread along with some butter and cheese!
I like to bake my sourdough bread in the traditional way, as a round loaf or French loaf baked in a cast-iron Dutch oven over mesquite coals. But it can be baked in a regular or brick oven, in any way that you like to bake your bread, be it in long loaves, small rolls, baguettes, for pancakes, pizza, pretzels, etc. Some people wrap the dough around a stick and baked it next to a fire!
Another traditional South Texas bread is called ‘Pan de Campo’, Camp Bread, or Cowboy Bread. A popular bread that was commonly made when the cowboys were out working cattle or on long cattle drives on the range or trail and there just wasn’t time to make sourdough bread. This is an easy to make bread that is also typically baked in a Dutch oven over mesquite coals. Instead of using sourdough starter, it is made with baking powder. It is absolutely delicious! Pan de Campo also happens to be the Official State Bread of Texas!
I will also include a copy of my family recipe for Pan de Campo along with your sourdough starter.
I grind my dried starter under low temperatures to preserve the integrity and viability of the heirloom cultures it contains. This is a 100% pure dried starter with absolutely no added flour or fillers! This makes for an easy-to-dissolve dry starter for you to have success in your sourdough adventures!
You will receive a packet of my Super-Active dehydrated 1850’s Heirloom South Texas Ranch Sourdough Starter plus complete instructions on how to re-activate it and start using it to bake some incredible heirloom sourdough bread.
I will also include our super- easy-to-make old family recipe for sourdough bread as well.
Experience some today!
We ship to USA addresses only. Please check out our other items on ebay!!
Instruction for Activating your 1850’s Heirloom South Texas Ranch Sourdough Starter:
This starter is very strong and forgiving so it’s easy to activate! The most important factor is temperature- it loves warmth! You will need to put your starter in a very warm spot. It is very hot in South Texas so we culture our starter at 84-90 degrees F. Cooler temps will slow it down. Also very important is to always use purified water like distilled, R/O, spring, bottled, etc., NEVER use tap water!
Day 1
Mix the packet of dry starter with ½ cup of unbleached all-purpose-flour (UAPF) or whole wheat flour, ½ cup warm purified water, and 1 tablespoon cane sugar in a 1-2 quart jar or plastic storage container.
Do not seal the lid!
Day 2
Add ½ cup UAPF, ½ cup warm water, and mix well.
Do not seal lid
. You want a
very thick
pancake-like batter, NOT runny at all, add more flour if needed to get the proper consistency. Remember, this starter is very forgiving!
Day 3
Add ½ cup UAPF, ½ cup warm water, and mix well.
Do not seal lid
. Adjust consistency as needed.
Note:
At some point you may need to transfer your starter to a larger container, share some with a friend, or toss some out due to the volume- your choice.
Day 4
Add ½ cup UAPF, ¼ cup warm water, and mix well.
Do not seal lid
. Adjust consistency as needed.
Day 5
Add 1 cup UAPF, ¾ cup warm water, and mix well.
Do not seal lid
. Within 3-5 hours of this last feeding, or at least by the end of the day, your starter is ready to use or store in the fridge. At this point your starter is considered
‘Freshly
Fed’
, and that is what you want to use whenever you bake bread. This maximizes the starter activity in the dough. So always feed your starter a few hours before baking for the best results.
Be sure to feed your refrigerated starter about every 10-15 days to keep it nice and healthy!
And remember never to seal the lid
!
Super-Easy Basic Family Heirloom Sourdough Bread Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup freshly fed starter, 1 cup purified water, 1 ½ teaspoons salt, 3 cups unbleached AP or bread flour. To make a whole wheat loaf, use 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 2 cups of unbleached AP or bread flour in the recipe. If you have a clay baker instead of a Dutch oven, it should work fine.
1.
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, mix well, then cover with cling-wrap and let rise in a warm location like your kitchen counter, for 8-12 hours (overnight is good). I find it easiest to mix the dough up before bed, so that in the morning it is ready to put in the oven and have a fresh loaf by noon!
2.
In the morning preheat your oven to 500 degrees F then place your Dutch oven in to also preheat for 20 minutes.
3.
While the oven is preheating, dump the risen sourdough onto a well-floured surface, being careful not to over-work the dough and deflate all the bubbles. Use a dough scraper to get all the dough out of the bowl.
4.
Flour your hands and fold the dough into itself from all four sides forming a round mound/ball.
5.
Carefully (the Dutch oven is very hot) place the dough ball into the Dutch oven, slash the top of the dough a couple of times with a very sharp knife, then cover with the lid and bake for 20 minutes.
6.
After 20 minutes baking, remove the Dutch oven lid, lower the temp to 450 F and bake another 10-20 minutes or until the top of the loaf is to the desired color/doneness.
7.
Remove the Dutch oven from the oven and take the bread out of the Dutch oven and place on a cooling rack and allow the bread to cool completely before slicing.
H
ENJOY!!