Cozy Kitchen Recipes

Gina Gellings is a wife, mom and beautiful friend to the community. A physical therapist by training, she also sews, crochets, does alterations, models and loves to bake. She says, “I’ve always been one to work with my hands and use my hands for good to create.”

Her family centers their values around love, hard work, kindness and caring for each other and the world. Gina has helped many people make sourdough and has shared a couple recipes to integrate into your own kitchen. For advice and tips, please feel free to message her on Instagram @denver_model_mom.

Beginners Sourdough Bread
Author: Lisa Bass

Ingredients

475 grams all-purpose flour 3 1/2 cups

100 grams starter active and bubbly (1/2 cup)

325 grams water 1 1/3 cups

10 grams salt 2 teaspoons

Instructions

Feed a sourdough starter 4-12 hours before starting the dough, ensuring it is active and bubbly.
Combine warm water, active starter, salt and flour with a wooden spoon or even just your hands in a large mixing bowl.
Cover with plastic wrap or a lid and allow to rest for 30 minutes for the water to hydrate the flour.

Stretch and Fold

Grab the edge of the dough and pull up stretching it out as you pull upwards. This may be difficult and you may need to kind of bounce the dough to get it to stretch. Place dough that is in your hands back into the center. Turn the bowl about a quarter turn and complete another stretch and fold. Repeat two more times. This is considered one round.
Thirty minutes later, complete another round of stretch and folds. Cover and allow the dough to rest another 30 minutes.
Complete one last stretch and fold it round.
Cover with a lid, damp towel or plastic wrap. Let the dough bulk ferment in a warm place until it has doubled in size. This could be anywhere from 6-12 hours (or longer), depending on the temperature of your kitchen, maturity of your starter, etc. Be careful not to let it overferment.

Shape

Place the dough on a clean work surface that has been lightly dusted with flour. Fold the dough onto itself and roll up. Then shape into a ball by gently spinning it toward you.
Optional: Let the dough sit out for 15-20 minutes uncovered. This prevents the dough from sticking to the tea towel during the overnight rise.
Turn over and shape. I do this by folding the two sides over to meet in the middle, pinch together and then repeat on the other two sides. This creates surface tension, which helps give it more oven spring (a good rise).
Transfer to a floured banneton or bowl with a floured tea towel (typically floured with rice flour, this is not necessary and all-purpose will work just fine) seam side up.
Cover with plastic or place in a plastic bag and tie the ends. Let the dough rest for 12-15 hours in the refrigerator. You can also let the bread rise at room temperature for 3-4 hours. I like using the longer rise time in the refrigerator because it is easier to score and feel like the oven spring is better.

Bake

Preheat a dutch oven to 500 degrees for 1 hour.
Remove dough from the fridge right before baking. Place dough on a piece of parchment paper.
Dust with flour, if desired and score with lame or razor blade. I like to do one large score (called an expansion score) and then a cute design for the other score.
Carefully, transfer the piece of parchment paper with the dough into the hot dutch oven. Careful not to burn your fingers.
Place the lid back on and place the dutch oven into the hot oven. Bake for 20 minutes.
Remove the lid with oven mitts, turn the oven temperature down to 475 degrees and bake for an additional 15-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Overnight Pillowy Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
Author: Amanda Paa

Yield: 8 rolls

Ingredients

300 grams all-purpose flour
20 grams bread flour (Or this can be all-purpose flour. I like the little bit of chew that bread flour adds.)
20 grams whole wheat flour
30 grams organic cane sugar
7 grams sea salt
180 grams whole milk, room temperature
130 grams active sourdough starter
1 large egg, room temperature
75 grams room temperature softened unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 tablespoon chunks

FILLING

3 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
80 grams organic cane sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
pinch of salt

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

5 ounces full fat ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

Instructions

Add flours, sugar and salt to the bowl of a stand mixer. Stir together. Whisk egg, milk and starter together in a separate bowl until no lumps of starter remain.
Attach hook to mixer, and turn on the KitchenAid speed 2. Gradually add liquid ingredients until all dry bits are gone. When most of the flour is absorbed, turn mixer to speed 4 and knead for 30 seconds. Mixture will not look smooth, just shaggy. Let sit for 15 minutes.
Turn mixer onto speed 2 (using KitchenAid Stand Mixer) and add one chunk of butter at a time to the dough, only adding another chunk once the previous is fully incorporated into the dough. Keep doing this until the butter is all added to the dough.
Once all the butter is in the dough, turn KitchenAid up to speed 4 and continue kneading for 7 minutes: the dough will be smooth, and cleaning the sides of the bowl. It will be slightly sticky to the touch still.
Overnight rise: Once kneading is done, place the dough in a bowl and cover with a damp cloth or place bowl inside garbage bag. Leave at room temp to rise until double, about 9-10 hours if your home is at 70 degrees F. It will take longer if your home is cooler, less time if your home is warmer. *Because this is a brioche dough, it takes significantly longer to rise, don't be alarmed.
In the morning, the dough will have doubled, have a smooth top and be domed. Turn it out onto a heavily floured counter. Gently pat it into a rectangle shape and let rest for 10 minutes.
Using a floured rolling pin, roll it into a large rectangle roughly 17″x 12, making the rectangle so that one of the longest sides is closest to you.
To make the filling: Use your fingers to spread the softened butter onto the dough keeping 1/2" away from edges.
This will seem odd, but this technique prevents the filling from leaking out while rising.
Mix cinnamon, sugar, flour and salt in small bowl. Evenly distribute the mixture on top of butter.
Then use your bench scraper to begin rolling up the dough into a log, starting with the long edge closest to you. Use a little extra flour on the bench scraper each time to help pick the dough up from the surface. Don’t worry if it sticks a little; just use a little more flour dust. Roll it down to the top edge and pinch the edge to the dough log to seal it.
You should have a long log of dough roughly 17″ long.
Now cut the dough log with your bench scraper, at 1 1/2 to 2" intervals (you should get 8 or 9 rolls) and place the rolls into a liberally buttered or greased 9 x 13 inch aluminum pan.
Place the pan inside a clean garbage bag and fold the opening over so that no air gets inside. Leave at room temp (in a warm spot if possible) to proof until rolls have risen about 50% in size, this takes about 2ish hours if your house is at 70 degrees (less if it is warm in your home or summer time). If you have a warm spot in your home, put them there to speed things up. They should be puffy.
When the rolls are done proofing, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place pan in oven, turn down to 375 degrees F and bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown at the edges, set in the middles and smelling done. Remove and let cool for 15 minutes.
Make the Frosting: Beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Add remaining ingredients and beat until smooth and airy. When rolls have cooled for 15 minutes, frost them. This will allow the icing to melt into them a bit and create the most fabulous icing.