Tradition and Innovation

Earlier this week I mentioned that I've gotten on the sourdough bandwagon.

Today I tried a very traditional application-a big ol' sourdough loaf with a fifteen-hour sponge stage, a five-hour proof, and baked off in a Dutch oven. The awesome crackly noise of this crust may be my greatest triumph of the week.

And I still needed to bake desserts for the lock-in my son is attending. Eighty-some teens and their adult chaperones, taking over a church for the weekend. Hmm...

Something quicker, please. And we have some special diets in the group, so what might I do with ingredients already in the house? Vegan banana bread! And my usual vegan chocolate cupcake recipe--I could make that gluten-free with the special mix I had in the pantry.

Within an hour I was done with these two recipes. My son reported that the cupcakes were sort of elastic. I tried one.  Yeaaah.  Sort of like a gummy worm. Hmm. Maybe it's the potato starch or the guar gum. Perhaps a reaction with the vinegar beyond the usual baking soda moment. Regardless of the chemistry, they still taste awesome.

Sometimes we go for tradition--using recipes and methods that our great-great-great grandmothers might have used way back when. Other times we try something very new, maybe taking a chance with something even our grandmothers couldn't have bought in any store. It might be for the sheer novelty of it, or it might be a deliberate choice to be more inclusive to whomever walks in the door.

May it be delicious!