Sourdough … Ready or Not!?

Well, here is a photo of when my sourdough starter was doing what it was supposed to do:

  And then it looked like this (a day or so later):

Still ‘good’. Today, when I am supposed to be able to use it, it had the bubbles on top (but no where near as profuse) but no bubbles throughout the dough.

I decided to use it anyway. I poured all but 1 cup into a mixing bowl (the 1 cup is for my next batch of starter), added about 1 teaspoon salt (most likely less) and two cups of flour. My starter was slightly soupy so I didn’t figure the water would be necessary (guess I’ll find out if I’m right!). After mixing in the first two cups of flour, I added one more. It became too difficult to stir with a spoon so I dumped it onto a 1/2 cup flour pile on my cutting/kneading board. I kneaded that flour into the dough and sprinkled about 1/2 cup more into it while kneading for 5 minutes.

Here’s the dough now:

I ‘wrapped’ a towel around the bottom of the bowl and draped the stripped towel over the bowl. It isn’t cold in our house but there isn’t a warm spot really either. I will check the dough periodically throughout the day…

I hope it turns out good!