Category Archives: Baking

My Literary Fruitcakes

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It’s always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: “It’s fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.”

“A Christmas Memory” ~ Truman Capote (1924-1984; American novelist, playwright, screenwriter and actor)

It’s no secret. I love food. I love to cook. I love to bake. And, when it’s fruitcake weather, I love to lose myself in baking fruitcakes.

Yes. Fruitcakes. MAHvelous fruitcakes! Say what? You don’t like fruitcake? No way! I’ll bet that you’ve never had a really good fruitcake. Not to worry. I’m not going to try to turn you into a fruitcake or into a fruitcake lover.

But, hey. Come on. Show me a little respect, too, won’t you? Just stop it right there. Right now. I’ve heard them all, heard them all already, all the fruitcake jokes.

What baffles me is how the ancient, noble, beloved fruitcake became the loathed butt end of some of the worst jokes in the world.

I’m tempted to blame Johnny Carson for them all. Every last one of them. I’m sure, though, that fruitcake jokes didn’t start with him, but his fruitcake joke is, without any doubt in the world, the worst in the annals of baking. Maybe that’s why it’s the most well-known. I’m sure you know it. On his Tonight Show during the 1960s, Carson quipped:

“The worst Christmas gift is fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other, year after year.”

People keeping sending Carson’s fruitcake joke to each other, year after year, too. Look. I just sent it to you.

And, no doubt, you’ve heard others like this one:

“Why does fruitcake make the perfect gift?

“Because the U.S. Postal Service hasn’t found a way to damage it.”

And who hasn’t heard this one?

“If you don’t like it, use it as a doorstop.”

But it gets worse than any of those dried and false jokes that couldn’t come to life if they were soaked in all the finest brandies in the world! There’s one fruitcake joke that is truly alive and lives year after year in Manitou Springs, Colorado. It comes to life annually during its Great Fruitcake Toss, celebrated since 1996. People pitch fruitcakes. People launch fruitcakes. People toss fruitcakes. And if my post makes you want to pack up your cake and join the people, you still have plenty of time to make arrangements. The next Toss will be on January 28, 2023. No fruitcake? No problem. (Don’t you dare ask for one of mine! You’ve got your nerve.) Rent one at the festival. You can, for one dollar. Go. Go on. Let your fruitcake fly.

That’s quite enough about fruitcake jokes. I’m not certain how I got pulled down that rabbit hole anyway.

My intent was simple and straightforward. It occurred to me that it might be fun to explore fruitcakes in literature. No. No. I don’t mean writers who are fruitcakes. They all are. (Trust me: I know firsthand.) I simply mean literary works about fruitcakes. You don’t even have to like fruitcake to be intrigued by such a hefty intellectual pursuit, especially if you like literature–as I do–and even more especially if you like fruitcake, too, and I do (but only the ones that I bake using my mother’s legendary recipe).

The first literary work involving fruitcake that popped into my mind was Truman Capote’s 1956 autobiographical short story “A Christmas Memory” featured in the pull quote to this post. Even if you haven’t read the short story, I’m betting that you’ve seen a movie version. I’ve seen several, but my favorite is from 1966, featuring Geraldine Page, one of my favorite actresses. (No actress can evoke heartfelt longing and nostalgia with a scrunched face better than she, and she did it at my tearful best in her Trip to Bountiful.)

What popped into my mind next wasn’t a literary work at all. Instead, it was a writer–one of my favorite poets: Emily Dickinson. Though famous and acclaimed today, she was an obscure poet in her lifetime–with only 10 of her poems known to have been published while she was alive–but she was highly regarded as a baker. Her father would only eat bread that she had baked. Recluse though she was, children in Amherst (MA), where she lived from 1830 to 1886 and only left on three occasions, would stand in the yard beneath her bedroom window as she lowered baskets of her freshly baked gingerbread. She was especially known for her black Caribbean Christmas cake. Houghton Library at Harvard University owns Dickinson’s handwritten recipe and the tradition of baking her cake continues today. It is so important that Canadian poet M. NourbeSe Philip wrote an essay, “Making Black Cake in Combustible Spaces.” She will read it as part of a moderated conversation from Dickinson’s home on December 12, 2022: “The Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute.”

I’ve never made Dickinson’s black cake, but just this past weekend, I baked a Jamaican Black Cake that’s close to hers. My home is still redolent from more than four cups of rum and port that I soaked all the dried fruits in for several weeks before my bake. The cake is a beauty! I will let it age probably until Valentine’s Day 2023. After I taste sweet success, I may reach out to Houghton Library and invite myself to join Team Cake, a group of Houghton bakers who recreate Dickinson’s cake, rigorously adhering to her recipe, and share it with colleagues and friends on Dickinson’s December 10 birthday. Wouldn’t that be a grand culinary adventure. Look out Houghton. Here I come.

The next writer with a fruitcake recipe is none other than Eudora Welty–American short story writer, novelist, and photographer. Her fruitcake is on the opposite end of the spectrum. It’s a White Fruitcake that sounds similar to mine. (For mine, I use brandy to soak the fruits before baking and to preserve the cakes after baking. If a little brandy is good, a little more is better, especially when it comes to fruitcakes.) Welty redeems herself, though, by adding a cup of bourbon to the batter. She redeems herself further with the note at the end of her recipe:

“From time to time before Christmas you may improve it with a little more bourbon, dribbled over the top to be absorbed and so ripen the cake before cutting. This cake will keep for a good white, in or out of the refrigerator.”

Her fruitcake recipe–given to her by a friend, Mrs. Mosal–was immortalized in the 1971 Symphony League of Jackson cookbook for which Welty wrote the “Foreword,” commenting:

“I often think to make a friend’s fine recipe is to celebrate her once more, and in that cheeriest, most aromatic of places to celebrate in – the home’s kitchen.”

See there. Books give life everlasting to everything, even fruitcakes.

Dare I confess that those three literary fruitcake associations–Welty, Dickinson, and Capote–were the only ones that I knew readily.

I suppose that I could end the post now, but I can’t. Not just yet. If I did, I wouldn’t get to share the fruits of my research.

So let me start by sharing when the word fruitcake was first used as a reference to a type of cake. 1687 is a long time ago, but, candidly, I expected the word to have been coined far earlier. I was a little disappointed. But, anyway, it appeared that year in a heading in J. Shirley’s Accomplished Ladies Rich Closet of Rarities: 

“Instructions for a gentlewoman in making of marmalade, paste of fruit … fruit-cakes, honey ” (vi. 38).

Since I was perusing the OED already, I decided to see when fruitcake was first used to suggest extreme eccentricity or insanity, as in nutty as a fruitcake.

It was first used in that context on March 5, 1911, in the Chicago Sunday Examiner :

“Isn’t Ethel a sweet girl, as sweet as a piece of cake?”

“Why, I think that she is as nutty as fruit cake” (v. 5/2).

At this point, my research into fruitcakes in literature took a turn that surprised me. Really surprised me.

I browsed “famous short stories about fruitcakes.” No famous ones.

Then I tried “famous poems about fruitcakes.” No famous ones.

In a search of desperation, I tried “famous novels about fruitcakes.” Again, no famous ones.

At last, I tried something straight forward: literary fruitcakes.

O. M. G. What I found left me trembling in my virtual research tracks.

I landed on an article with nearly that exact title: “The Literary Fruitcake” written by Don Webb. It chronicles the literary travels of one specific fruitcake, from its first gifting in 1843 all the way up to its being stolen on Christmas Eve, 1993.

The story line alone is powerful. Imagine. A fruitcake–whether beloved or maligned– deemed important enough to have survived for 150 years, without having been eaten; to have been passed on from one writer to the next; and to have been documented meticulously with every gifting. It is nothing short of amazing. I doubt whether most of us could document our own family lineage that far back with the precision that Webb achieves in his first-person narrative.

Aside from being a story of surviving against all odds, it’s made all the more fascinating simply by the famous writers associated with the cake. They are beyond belief, but they are the very reason I kept reading the narrative. How could I not be aware of the fruitcake associated with so many famous writers?

Well, I was not. So I kept reading. In fact, once I started, I could not stop.

Queen Victoria, it seems, gave the fruitcake to Charles Dickens in 1843 after the first dramatic reading of his A Christmas Carol.

Some years later–in 1865–Bram Stoker stole the cake at a publication party for Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend. For years afterwards he showed the cake to friends every now and then. But eventually the spell of the fruitcake novelty wore off.

When Stoker published his Dracula in 1897, he passed the cake on to Arthur Machen (The Great God Pan) who passed it on to Algernon Blackwood (The Willows).

Wouldn’t you agree that this is deliciously fascinating? Yes, indeed. It is captivating. And to think that I still have to share how the cake was passed on through more literary hands for another hundred years.

Not to worry. I’ll speed it up. This fruitcake was old to begin with and it’s getting older by the word. But before speeding things up, let me state–just for the official record–that my interest in this narrative lies not with the fruitcake but rather with its famous literary owners.

After Algernon Blackwood, the fruitcake ended up with Gertrude Stein (The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas) who didn’t really want it, but her partner Alice Toklas persuaded her to keep it. It might amuse you to know that it was around this same time that Alice came up with her famous recipe for hashish fudge. It might amuse you even more to know that the “recipe” wasn’t hers after all. When her The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook was about to be published in 1954, the book had empty pages. The publisher added filler recipes, including one for Hashish Fudge submitted by avant-garde artist Brion Gysin. Alice was clueless and had never tested the recipe! Read all about it in the Scientific American. Yes. Scientific American. Whoever says that the humanities don’t matter needs to read “Go Ask Alice: The History of Toklas’ Legendary Hashish Fudge.”

But let’s get back to our famous, traveling literary fruitcake.

Stein gave the cake to Ernest Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea) who then passed it on to James Joyce (Ulysses).

When Joyce died, the fruitcake went to Samuel Beckett, prior to the publication of his Waiting for Godot.

Then in 1959, William Burroughs went to Paris to finalize publication plans for his Naked Lunch. While there, he managed to meet with Beckett–his literary hero–for 30 minutes or so. When he left, he wanted a memento and took what he believed to be a brick in the bottom of Beckett’s closet.

As you might have guessed, it wasn’t a brick at all. It was the famed fruitcake. Burroughs gave the cake to Allen Ginsberg (Howl) who gifted Jack Kerouac (On the Road) who passed it on to Thomas Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow) who traded it to Mary Denning in exchange for her knowledge of Pre-WW II chemistry.

(Dayum! I didn’t know that I could go so fast. Note to myself: Leave out all the nitty, gritty details and hasten the pace every time.)

Don Webb–the narrator of “The Literary Fruitcake”–bought the cake for $150 dollars, took it home to Austin, Texas, and eventually decided to eat it on Christmas Eve, 1993.

Sadly, when he and his wife came home that evening, they discovered that their home had been robbed. The thieves had taken the fruitcake along with other valuables.

The police never located the fruitcake. Over the next few months, though, graffiti began to appear on wall after wall throughout Austin.

And then I read:

“… the driven thief released the intensity of his soul. … We never sought out the writer, for we feared our presence might interfere with his process, but we grew fiercely proud of the words that covered our walls. Soon all of Austin was obscured by the words by the words of perfection:

“‘We, who dwell in the holy shrines, will preserve this treasure unto the ends of time.'”

It was not until then–not until the very end–that I realized: I had been had. I had been had big time.

I could not believe it: I, the English professor who knows fully well–and even warns his students–not to trust first person narrators, especially in first person accounts of fruitcakes passing through the hands of royalty and an incredible number of auspicious British and American writers.

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.

But it’s okay. It’s really quite okay. I’ve been had many, many times down through the years. Sweet Scorpionic revenge is always mine.

I just made reservations to fly to Manitou Springs, Colorado, so that I can participate in their January 28, 2023, Great Fruitcake Toss. I have reached out to Collin Street Bakery to see whether they will sponsor me.

Here’s what I’m going to do for my Fruitcake Toss Extraordinaire that will make world-wide headlines. I’m going to wrap Duper Don Webb up real tight in all the printed and virtual copies that I can find of his “The Literary Fruitcake.” And then I’m going to give a celebratory “Heave-Ho” as I catapult the nuttiest fruitcake of them all–the author who pulled off the biggest fruitcake heist ever and told the biggest fruitcake joke ever–as far into the thin air as possible.

For once, I’ll let a fruitcake fly with glee.

The Joy of Baking

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Sharing baked goods with your friends and neighbors is a great way to feel connected or make new connections.

(Pamela Honsberger, a family doctor and director of physician engagement and leadership development at Kaiser Permanente in Orange County, California)

Thankfully, Thanksgiving is past. Don’t get me wrong. Dinner was awesome. Turkey. Gravy. Buttered Green Beans. Creamed Spinach. Candied Sweet Potatoes. Jellied Cranberry Sauce. Cranberry Sauce in Grand Marnier with Ground Ginger and Candied Ginger. Homemade Dinner Rolls. Pecan Pie. Pumpkin Pie. Cherry Pie.

Far more important than the dinner, though, were my guests. Friends chose to give up Thanksgiving in their own home to spend the day with me in my mountain home. And they brought a new friend who also chose to spend the day with us rather than in his own home. I was truly honored by their company. (Thank you, Frank, Barb, and James!) And isn’t that what Thanksgiving is all about? Being with friends and loved ones in a communal celebration not only of good food but also of life’s beyond-measure blessings. How incredibly important it is to slow down on at least one day of the year to give heartfelt thanks.

But now that it’s past, I’ll return to my regular baking once again. The Jamaican Black Cake that I’ve been working on for weeks will take center-stage. The dried fruits–prunes, dark raisins, golden raisins and cherries–have been soaking in 140 proof rum and port (equal amounts of each) for several weeks now. I may very well undertake the bake this weekend. I have never baked a Jamaican Black Cake before, but last year my Strasburg (Virginia, not Austria) correspondent shared a New York Times article with me about Jamaican Black Cakes. This year, I am filled with joyful anticipation of the soon-to-happen bake.

I have been an incredibly busy baker this entire year. Muffins. Scones. Bread. Fruitcakes.

What prompted my baking frenzy was simple. I resurrected my love of sourdough, and I created a culture of my own using nothing more than flour, well water, mountain spores, time, and patience. No doubt you remember my “Oh, No! Sourdough!” (If not, this would be the perfect time to read it, right after you finish reading this post.)

I’ve had lots of fun with the sourdough muffins. I like big ones, and mine are bakery-style jumbo muffins. The Morning Glory Muffins proved, perhaps, the most popular, followed by the Triple Chocolate Muffins. But the White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Muffins were favored by many people. So were the Lemon Blueberry Muffins and the Banana Blueberry Muffins. Several muffin aficionados even claimed that my Banana Blueberry Muffins were the best they had ever had during their extensive world travels. (Being a suck-up will get you more muffins every time!) Most recently the Pumpkin Muffins have been winners, only to be outdistanced by the Triple Ginger Gingerbread Muffins.

I’ve baked about 43 dozen or so of those jumbo jewels, and I’ve shared them with students, colleagues, and neighbors.

The Sourdough Scones were a huge success, too: Banana. Banana Blueberry. Apple.

I baked about 7 dozen or so in small batches, shared exclusively with friends and neighbors.

Sourdough Bread is up next! You just can’t go wrong with regular Sourdough Bread, that is until you try Multi-Grain Sourdough. But, then, Parmesan Black Pepper Sourdough is a fierce flavor contender.

I baked about 34 loaves of Sourdough Bread, and I shared them with colleagues, friends, neighbors, and even strangers who became fast friends.

As for sourdough cakes, I baked one: a Chocolate Orange Bundt Cake.

It was so delicious that I ate the whole cake all by myself without sharing. I suppose, however, that I am sharing simply by mentioning it here and by declaring its deliciousness.

But I baked lots and lots of fruitcakes. No, not Sourdough Fruitcakes. I’ll be foolin’ around with those next year. I’ve found a few recipes.

This year I stuck with my mom’s fruitcake recipe that she perfected during 70 years or so of baking. Her fruitcakes were legendary and the best, ever. You may remember my “In Praise of Fruitcake.” (If not, this might be the perfect time to read it, but not until you finish reading this post.)

One year my mother baked 34 fruitcakes and shipped them to her friends all across America.

I didn’t bake that many, but I am super proud of the 16 fruitcakes that I baked this year.

Let me tell you a little bit about them. I know–and you do, too–that I teach English. But when it comes to math, I know all the numbers (plus the secret ingredient) for the 16 fruitcakes that I baked this year.

This is when I need a drum roll. (Great! Someone heard my plea and reached out. That might very well have been the most melodious drum roll that I have never heard. Thank you!)

So, with no further ado, here’s the moment you’ve been salivating for. Here’s what went into those 16 fruitcakes: 24 pounds of candied cherries; 16 pounds of candied pineapple; 16 pounds of golden raisins; 16 pounds of pecans; 16 pounds of butter; 16 pounds of flour; 9 pounds of sugar; 98 eggs; and 1 gallon of peach brandy.

All right. That’s as much as I am willing to divulge. The special proprietary blend of spices is staying right here with me in my kitchen.

I will tell you, though, that most of the 16 cakes are bespoke. Most of them are gifts. However, I have set aside a few to share with people who don’t even know they need a fruitcake yet. Won’t they be surprised!

I imagine that you’re thinking that I must be exhausted from all this baking. I’m not. The various joys of my bakes far outweigh the weight of their ingredients.

Here’s why. So many other things go into baking. Planning. (I sometimes plan my bakes weeks and months in advance.) Research. (I love the research angle and find myself running culinary reference just as my mother ran Biblical reference. Right now, I am researching Sourdough Stollen and running reference on all the various recipes.) Anticipation. (As I pitted cherries last week for a pie that one of my Thanksgiving guests requested–halfing one half of the cherries; quartering the other half; that was not his request; that was simply part of my perfect-cherry-pie recipe–I stood at the kitchen counter joyed beyond the tedium, simply anticipating Frank’s first-sight and first-bite reactions.) Performance against Plan. (Do the bakes measure up? Most times, thumbs up. Sometimes, thumbs down. Sometimes, a trash can is a baker’s best friend: it accepts and never tells. Trust me. I know.)

But at the end of the day and at the end of the bake, the greatest joy of all the many joys of baking–the joy that always rises to the top, for me–is simple. I can share it with you in four words:

The joy of sharing.

Actually, I can share it with you in one word:

Sharing.

Oh, No! Sourdough!

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“’Can I bring you some of my sourdough starter. Would you like that?’ Hattie raised an eyebrow at me. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It is quite a commitment. I had some before and I didn’t look after it. It died and I felt terrible.'”

Sally Andrew, The Milk Tart Murders (2022)

When I was a graduate student at the University of South Carolina (Columbia), I became a sourdough master, partly because I lived the life of a starving grad student but largely because I loved practicing a culinary art with spores going all the way back to ancient Egyptian times. And whenever I wanted, I could fast forward to the more recent and better-known traditions of the California Gold Rush miners who were known as “Sourdoughs.”

With equal speed, I could shift my focus from sourdough histories to sourdough geographies. Did you know that the flavor of sourdough differs from region to region? It does. The reason is simple. Microbes differ from place to place. Plus, bakers in different regions have varying flour preferences and differing ways of starting their starters.

Working with my own sourdough was so fascinating and my baked goods–primarily bread and pancakes–were so delicious that I kept my sourdough culture alive and well throughout grad school and throughout my subsequent career at the Library of Congress.

Oddly enough, when I moved from Capitol Hill to the Shenandoah Valley, my sourdough starter died.  Maybe it didn’t like fresh country air as much as I. I doubt it. I probably got so blown away by country air and country living that I neglected to give my sourdough culture the care, attention, and regular use that it requires, even in the country.

Obviously, without my own starter, I had to stop baking my own sourdough bread. No big deal. I could easily buy some pretty good sourdough loaves in my local grocery stores. I say “pretty good” because store-bought sourdough bread always smacks of commercial yeast. A real sourdough aficionado would never, ever–absolutely never, ever–use commercial yeast to boost a sourdough starter that wasn’t strong enough to rise up on its own. No way. The beauty of working with sourdough is slowing down, taking time, and letting Mother Nature work her own Poppin’ Fresh, Pillsbury Doughboy magic. Rise up. Rise up.

But a few weeks ago, I got a hankering to bake some sourdough bread. So I decided to make room in my life once again for sourdough starter.

No big deal. It’s simple and straightforward. Using a wooden spoon, I mixed up 120 grams of whole wheat flour with 120 grams of water in a glass jar, covered it with cheesecloth, put it in a warm kitchen spot, and waited for my mountain spores to start their mountain magic.

By day two, little bubbles bounced gleefully up and down and all around. The magical sourdough dance of life had begun!

At that point, I knew exactly what to do. Discard half of the starter. Then feed the remaining starter 120 grams of all-purpose flour and 120 grams of water. As always, mix it all up with a wooden spoon, cover with cheesecloth, and return the jar to a warm kitchen spot.

However, I ran smackdab into a major crisis of monumental magnitude, ethical and economical.

Here’s the ethical part. The “discard” starter is filled with living microorganisms. While I had absolutely no qualms whatsoever about baking it to death for my own betterment and joy–not to mention the joy and betterment of those with whom I share–I was distressed thinking about throwing it out–discarding it–as of no worth.

Here’s the economical part. I am a big believer in “Waste not, want not.” I can’t throw away something that I might be able to put to good use. The mere thought makes every fiber of my being quake.

My compound crisis that day resulted in two jars of starter on my counter, instead of the single jar that I should have had.

On day three, I suffered just as much as I had the day before. Yep. You guessed it. Now I was parenting and feeding four jars of sourdough starter.

Day four doubled my joy and my responsibility: eight jars.

Day five, sixteen jars.

Now, come on folks. This is getting serious–alarmingly so–because it takes seven days or longer for a starter to mature and be so full of vim and vigor and little yeasties that it can transform any kitchen into a Sourdough Sanctuary.

You do the math. (After all, I teach English. What do I know about math?) But as near as I can figure, by day seven–if I continued to adhere to my high standards of sourdough ethics and economics–my counter would be covered with 64 jars of sourdough starter, each one needing love and feeding. I could manage the love. I could manage feeding. But what the heck! I don’t even own that many Weck jars. Besides, I don’t need all that sourdough. Neither baker nor bakery am I.

Thank God, I came up with a brilliant plan: reach out to friends and offer up my precious sourdough starters for adoption. Surely my friends would save me from myself.

Thus began my noble quest to rid myself of my own madness.

ME TO A FRIEND. “If you have any interest in adopting a jar [of sourdough starter]–with a full commitment to having it bring you baking joy for years into the future–I’ll be glad to share with you, and I will even forego the customary adoption process that I am told is customary in matters of bake such as this. Just let me know!”

FRIEND TO ME. “Well, I’d love to know about that ‘adoption process’ for hand-reared sourdough, but I daren’t risk actually adopting any cuz I have a feeling it would die before I got any use out of it and I don’t want to risk experiencing any ritualistic unpleasantness that might have made up part of the adoption process. If you want to give me a loaf or a waffle, though, I’d be entirely grateful!”

Well, phooey! How’s that for a friend? She wants all the gain without any of the pain. Hmpff!

At that point, I knew that my efforts to place my starters up for adoption were going nowhere fast.

Here’s what I came up with as an alternative. Rather than watch jars of sourdough starter double every day, why not bake with the sourdough discards?

I love to bake, you know. You definitely know that if you read and remember my post “Baking Up My Past.” (And if have not read it, read it. And if you have read it but don’t remember it, I won’t say, “Shame on you.” But, really! Shame on you. Re-read it to lessen the shame that you’re surely feeling.)

But returning to the serious matter of turning my sourdough discards into delights rather than tossing them into the compost heap as of no worth, I did as my friend–the same one who chose not to adopt one of my starving starters–always reminds me to do whenever I share with her one of my many and endless brilliant ideas: “Google that.”

And that’s just what I did! I googled, “Baking with sourdough discard.”

Dare I share with you my utter shock and amazement when I discovered that lots and lots of other folks had stolen my brilliant idea–just as lots and lots of folks have stolen my other brilliant ideas in the past–and had posted hundreds of recipes without giving me even the slightest crumb of credit, not even in Baking Notes. Well, I have never. (But rest assured: I have.)

The only thing that lessened my shock and amazement was the fact that some of those sourdough discard recipes sounded so good that I decided to try them.

I knew just where to start. Sourdough bread. I had made it before. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Next? Sourdough pancakes. I had made them before, too, but these would be super special because I could open up my last bottle of Brattleboro (VT) Maple Syrup that I bought in 2019 when I was guest speaker in the town where Mary E. Wilkins Freeman launched her distinguished writing career. Oh, my!!! I was not disappointed. Those pancakes were well worth the wait.

Then came sourdough waffles. Vanilla one day. Chocolate, the next. Both days, Brattleboro maple syrup presided.

Then came sourdough muffins, lots and lots of jumbo, bakery-style muffins. Morning Glory. Blueberry. Triple Chocolate. Lemon White Chocolate Chip. Banana Chocolate Chip. To my great joy, the sourdough muffins proofed to be exceptional. My neighbors, friends, colleagues, students (and one stranger) gave rave (and ravenous) reviews.

I knew, though, that I needed to move past breakfast. How could I use my sourdough for dinner? Of course! Pizza. Imagine your favorite pizza, and I’ll guarantee that it will be better with a sourdough crust.

My sourdough chicken and dumplings were heavenly. I confess that I had some major doubts about sourdough cornbread, but it proofed to be the best ever.

And you can’t have dinner without dessert. How about Sourdough Chocolate Orange Bundt Cake? You want some? Excellent! You won’t be disappointed. What’s that? With ice-cream? Sure thing. Vanilla. Homemade. On the house.

I am happy to report that I have baked the good bake so successfully and so frequently that now I am the proud parent of sourdough-starter triplets. All three jars are in the fridge where they can chill with one another for an entire week before I have to care for them again.

At this point, I have a plan. That’s right: you guessed it. It’s brilliant. Here it is. I’ll spend this coming weekend having my own sourdough bake off.

To start, I will use one entire jar of starter–every last drop of it–for making several loaves of sourdough bread.

Then I will use the second jar–every last drop of it–to make assorted sourdough muffins.

“What about that third jar?” I hear someone asking. Don’t worry. It will be an “only,” but it won’t be lonely. I will love it and nourish it and use it forever and forever and forever, and I will bake really good bakes, bake by bake by bake.

Better still, every time I bake with it, I will do so with an abundance of bubbly joy, knowing that I saved myself from parenting the 64 jars of little yeasties that I nearly found myself parenting.

And, best of all, I will no longer walk into my kitchen sighing under my breath, “Oh, no! Sourdough.”