I have been messing with a sourdough starter for a while now, but it wasn’t until recently that I got it to do what it was supposed to! It finally doubled in my jar on the shelf within a few hours rather than just looking bubbly. So anyways, I’ll start at the beginning. A while back, based on the recommendation here, I bought an Italian dried starter online at sourdo.com to make flavorful pizza crusts. Then I finally re-hydrated it and got it sorta started. It would just bubbly but not really grow. So finally it went back in the fridge because my gosh it is a lot of work to keep the starter fed. Then I bought a food scale based on online recommendations and measured by weight rather than by volume and eventually it really grew! So now I’m a bit obsessed. I’ve tried making sourdough bread a couple of times and the last one was pretty good, but I want it better before I post it.

It is worth mentioning that I’m not longer planning on using the starter for pizza. From what I have read, soughdough starter doesn’t really keep its original flavor because once you move the starter it takes the yeasts from the flour you use. So I’m not in Italy using the flour and yeasts in Italy, so I’m pretty sure it has become a Los Angeles starter. And I tried making pizza last night and I really didn’t like the flavor.

I am not sure where I got the idea for sourdough banana bread, I’ve never made normal banana bread before, but sure enough there are a few recipes online. My recipe is adapted from this recipe. I omitted the vanilla and nuts (I do not like nuts in breads or cakes-the texture is so wrong to me) and I was inspired by the comments off of a very similar recipe to make it as healthy as possible: coconut oil, palm sugar, part whole wheat flour.

1/3 cup coconut oil
3/4 cup palm sugar
1 egg
3 medium sized very ripe bananas*
1 cup sourdough starter (fresh and bubbly)
1 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (I used Indian Atta flour since it is a little more finely ground)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. In a mixing bowl mix the coconut oil and palm sugar using a hand beater. It is warm enough here now that our coconut oil is liquid so I didn’t beat it until fluffy. Not sure how it would beat if it was colder and more solid.
2. Add the egg and beat again.
3. Stir in the bananas, then stir in the sourdough starter.
4. Sift the flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt into another bowl and then stir until mixed.
5. Add to the wet mixture and stir until just mixed.
6. Pour into a buttered loaf pan and let sit for 20 minutes.
7. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 60-65 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

*Our bananas weren’t ripe enough so I baked them at 300 degrees for 20 minutes based on a trick from Clean Green Simple’s blog. The post says to cook for 1 hour, but our bananas were fairly close to being ripe.