Sourdough Crescents

About a week or so ago, I was talking with my sister. And, as usually happens with the two of us, we started talking about food. And then we started talking about our sourdough starters. It was time for her to feed hers, and she wasn't sure what she should make with the "discard" portion. We were both talking about the things we've tried, things we wanted to try... and we both wound up doing various online searches for inspiration.

And then she found this site, chock full of tasty ideas. Well, what she told me was that she found a recipe for sourdough crescents that looked good and simple, and when I asked for the url, I wound up oooh-ing and aaah-ing over most of the recipes listed.

But she was right - the crescents looked good and simple, and I just couldn't resist. So of course I had to try them, too.

The dough is actually quite similar to the biscuit dough that I had so much practice with recently.

The dry ingredients are whisked together, and then chunks of butter are added.

The butter is cut or rubbed in, making the flour resemble a coarse meal.


Then the liquid is added. Now here's the difference - with biscuits, the liquid is usually some kind of milk or cream. Here, the liquid is sourdough starter.

The recipe calls for two thirds of a cup of starter to be mixed in, which should yield a nice dough. For my dough, two thirds of a cup was not enough, and I wound up adding almost an entire third of a cup more. But the resulting dough was beautiful and smooth, and rolled out beautifully.

Oh, yeah, it's no longer similar to biscuits, preparation wise. The dough was divided in half, and each half was rolled into a circle.

Each circle was then cut into six wedges.

To make the crescents, each wedge was simply rolled up, wide end to tip!


Easy enough!

I decided to play a bit, as well. I made half of my crescents plain, and for the other circle of dough, I decided to add some pepperoni and cheddar.


Next time I do this, I'll grate the cheddar rather than just cutting pieces, as it did make it a little harder to roll the crescents up...


But they still came together very quickly.

And baked up beautifully (and quickly! only 12 minutes!). The cheese did a little bit of oozing out, but I never really view that as a problem.


They looked and smelled beautiful right out of the oven.

As for the taste? Both little miss and I liked them, as did little man. Daddy didn't get to taste them until the next day, and he said they were okay. I didn't quite understand until I took a bite, too. They definitely taste better fresh out of the oven (okay, slightly cooled...). But to remedy that, I reheated the next one in the toaster for a few minutes, and it tasted delicious again. So I highly recommend reheating any leftovers rather than eating them cold.

These were definitely fun, and were quick and easy to make, so I can see more of these in our future!

And, in case you are curious, they were a hit in my sister's house, too! You can check her's out here.

Sourdough Crescent Rolls

(from Smart Mama)

1 cup flour (I used all purpose, the recipe called for whole wheat)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon sugar

4 tablespoons butter

2/3 (give or take) sourdough starter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine together the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and sugar.

Cut or rub in the butter.

Mix in the sourdough starter and stir together to make a soft dough.

Gently knead the dough for about one minute (I used my KitchenAid, but this would be easy to do by hand).
Divide the dough into two and, on a floured surface, roll each half into a nine-inch circle.

Cute each circle into six wedges and roll to shape each wedge into a crescent shape.

Bake for 12 minutes.

Enjoy!