Help Me Name My Sourdough Starter

Continuing through my King Arthur Baking School Journey, it is time for the sourdough chapter. The chapter begins by instructing on how to make a sourdough starter, a good first step in sourdough baking. Although I've owned this book for a few years, I only recently began my baking journey. Using this guide, I made my first starter in early 2025. Unfortunately, I dropped and shattered the container, leading to a brief sourdough hiatus. Later, when a coworker asked me for a starter, I realized I no longer had one and decided to make a new batch, on the condition that she named it. She chose the name Danny Doughvito. That starter thrived, allowing me to share it with many friends. During two consecutive Thanksgiving dinners this year, Danny Doughvito was accidentally tossed out in the midst of the kitchen chaos, likely because he was stored in a deli container looking similar to other beige, gloopy liquids in the fridge.

That leads to the birth of this exact sourdough starter. I am committed to keeping this starter around and have tried to prevent both of the past two casualties from happening again. My starter is in a small Cambro container, meaning it is shatterproof, and in a container different than the others in my fridge and kitchen, meaning it won't accidentally get tossed. The guide to making this sourdough starter is very easy to follow, and in just a few days, I was drowning in bread, baking projects, and an active sourdough starter.

This chapter covered all of the sourdough basics. Yeasted breads, breads only leavened by the sourdough starter, and other projects like crackers and waffles that instruct how to use your discard in many baking projects. The book explains that sourdough starter is simply water and flour, meaning it can be substituted for equal weights of water and flour in other baking recipes. I am having so much fun experimenting with different sourdough baking projects. Through this chapter, I made so many different sourdough projects and feel equipped to experiment and adapt other recipes to use my starter for. I was able to use the skills from the last chapter and truly feel comfortable working with various doughs and bread baking methods.

I am absolutely hooked on sourdough. I have added my sourdough baking, feeding, and the schedule of whether or not my starter is in the fridge to my household calendar. Please share all of your favorite sourdough recipes, techniques, and tools with me. I am always looking to learn more and am very excited to keep using my starter. I also need help naming this new baby starter. Hopefully, it will be around for a long time.