Sourdough discard recipes: a dupe for “Morning Rounds”

When my Quarantine Cooking adventures began in mid-March, we wanted to try to make as much as possible from scratch. This was in part because things like bread were cleared from shelves in those early days when supply wasn’t meeting demand as well as it is now, but also because it meant fewer hands in our food from beginning to end. I never really thought it would lead me to sourdough, but I inherited some sourdough starter and found myself not only making delicious bread but also searching for sourdough discard recipes because I loathe food waste.

Sourdough bread itself has taken me several nerdy weeks to nail down, but sourdough discard recipes are quick and easy to work with and take very little effort to master. And yet even with all of my daily baking, there was still one packaged bread product we were still buying each week: Morning Rounds. If you’re not familiar with Miss Q’s breakfast carb of choice, they’re like little, round muesli bread patties that are almost naan-like in weight, with a bit of a yeasty rise to them.

You can’t have sourdough discard without sourdough starter, and I wrote a complete step-by-step how to feed sourdough starter guide if you’ve inherited some starter and don’t know what the heck to do with it.

And since I’m home with the kids all-day-every-day-forever right now, it made sense to put my new-ish transitional kitchen (that’s fit for a chef) to good use and figure out not only how to make Morning Rounds at home but to use sourdough discard in the recipe since we have a daily supply of it.

Packaged Morning Rounds come in a bag of eight, which Miss Q eats inside of a week. This recipe makes 10 breakfast rounds that are roughly the same size and should last in the fridge for about a week if you keep them in an air-tight container. You could also freeze half in between sheets of parchment paper.

Important note: I don’t have a scale (yet), so this recipe is truly beginner-friendly since it uses measurements in cups, tablespoons and teaspoons instead of grams. Trust me — you’ve got this!

We’ve been on a tear looking for sourdough discard recipes to look for different ways to use our sourdough starter discard that piles up each day. This Morning Rounds recipe is perfect to use up a cup of the stuff!

Sourdough discard recipes, part 1: wannabe Morning Rounds recipe

I’ll quickly preface this recipe with Miss Q’s reaction after trying one fresh from the oven: “Mommy, WOW — they’re exactly like Morning Rounds, but fresher!” High praise from the girl who eats about 360 of these things a year.

Since this Morning Rounds dupe recipe doesn’t use fed sourdough starter, you don’t need to worry about timing like you do when making recipes using sourdough starter that’s your only source of yeast. Nope; you’re good to bake these muesli bread rounds any time of day that suits your schedule provided you have enough sourdough discard to work with.

For this recipe, I would feed my sourdough starter around 8-9 p.m. and then started making these around 9 a.m. the next day after pouring out my sourdough starter before its next feed. They are so quick and easy to make that it won’t be a chore to bake them every 10 days for my girl.

Before we dive in, have you bookmarked my Easy Family Meals post? In it, I have links to 60+ tried-and-true recipes that you can count on to be easy and delicious.

Ingredients

• 2 tsp active dry yeast + 1/4 tsp sugar + 2-3 tbsp lukewarm water
• 1/4 cup boiling water
• 2 tbsp muesli (or other grain-based cereal)
• 1/4 cup rolled oats (not quick oats or instant oatmeal!)
• 2.5 tbsp ground Shreddies (e.g. put in Vitamix for 15 sec)
• 1 tbsp hemp hearts (or hemp seeds)
• 2 tsp avocado oil (or another neutral oil)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 banana, mashed
• 1/2 apple, grated (with skin)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
• 2 tbsp maple syrup (or honey or agave syrup)
• 1 cup sourdough starter discard
• 1.5-2.5 cups all-purpose flour (how much you need will vary based on how wet your discard is, and how much water content is in your bananas and grated apples; I needed nearly 2.5 cups but my discard was quite runny)
• Plus a bit of milk in a bowl (grab a pastry brush, too)

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Directions

1. Boil water.

2. In a small bowl, proof your yeast using the active dry yeast, sugar and lukewarm water (I usually take a small whisk and add the yeast and sugar to the water while gently whisking, then cover and set the bowl aside for 5-10 minutes; if you don’t get some action here by way of bubbles or foam, your yeast may be dead and you’ll have to start this over until you have yeast that will proof).

3. Add oats and muesli to your stand mixer bowl. Pour boiling water on top and let cool. Attach your dough hook (I have a KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer so will refer to what I did at home with my own machine; your stand mixer may be configured differently).

4. Add yeast mixture, Shreddies, hemp hearts, oil and salt to the mixing bowl and stir with a spatula or wooden spoon (the dough hook won’t do much at this stage).

5. Add banana, apple, raisins, seeds, maple syrup and set to “stir” on your mixer. Increase speed only if the dough hook isn’t combining ingredients. This doesn’t have to be a perfectly thorough mix.

6. Add sourdough starter discard and “stir” with the mixer’s dough hook.

7. Slowly add flour and keep the mixer’s speed on “stir.” You may need to pause and scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times. This is where you need to use your judgement — the amount of flour you need will vary. You’re looking for the dough to become a sticky mass that mostly pulls away from the side of the bowl, but it’ll still be tacky if you touch it with your fingers. If you’re used to making bread, you DO NOT want to get to the point where the sides of the bowl are super clean and you can handle the dough easily with bare hands; this is going to be more like an extremely thick cake batter that you’ll need to handle with wet, floured or oiled hands. Think: “not too wet, not too formed.”

This is what your ball of dough should look like at this stage. (FYI: recipes using sourdough starter like this one account for the extra flour and water that would go into a recipe that doesn’t use discard.)

8. Leave everything in your mixing bowl, cover with plastic or a damp tea towel and let it rise for 45 minutes.

9. About 15 minutes before your 45-minute mark, pre-heat the oven to 375F and line or grease two baking sheets (these should be able to sit side by side on one rack in your oven).

10. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and gently form into a ball. Now, using your hands, roll the ball into a log and divide into 10 pieces with a sharp knife or dough cutter. Work quickly to form each piece into a small ball, only using enough flour on your hands to make the dough workable. Roll each ball into a “patty” shape using a rolling pin; they should be a little more than 1/4″ thick.

There aren’t as many sourdough starter discard recipes out there as there are for “fed” starter, but here’s a tasty new one to add to your arsenal.

11. Set five patties on each baking sheet as quickly as possible so the dough doesn’t continue rising, and gently brush the tops with milk (this is so it stays soft through the baking process). Put both trays into oven immediately.

12. Bake for 8-10 minutes (until the bottoms start to get golden brown), flip and bake another 2-4 minutes. Place on a cooling rack once out of the oven.

And voila! There you have it: your own version of Morning Rounds.

Pro Tip: this Morning Rounds bread is extra-yummy served with natural peanut or almond butter slathered on top of it. Enjoy!

Leftover sourdough starter makes so many wonderful recipes with a bit of added zing. My kids love everything I’ve made with it, but this take on Morning Rounds got a standing ovation from Miss Q.

DISCLAIMER: there isn’t one.