Sourdough Adventures

My cousin gave me some sourdough starter this summer and I’ve been working on my bread baking skills ever since.

A sourdough starter is simply a mixture of flour and water, that makes a little yeast colony. This can be used to make sourdough bread, amongst other things, and acts as its own raising agent. Thus, the only ingredients you need at home to make a loaf of bread is flour, water, and a little salt. Pretty cool! Sourdough bread is of course all the rage at the moment too, being easier to digest that regular bread, lower in gluten, and supposedly healthier.

Some might argue that I’m getting broody (I’m not), but one of the things I enjoy with having a sourdough starter is having a kind of easy-to-look-after pet in the fridge. One that I can use to make delicious fresh bread! I really wasn’t much of a baker, I hadn’t made bread since I was a child. I’d make a couple cakes a year maybe. So it’s been fun to trial and error my way through the sourdough minefield.

The internet is so full of different methods and often contradicting advice. Now that I am a bit more familiar with it all, I’m convinced that everyone has their own individual way of looking after, and using their starter. This leads me to believe that it’s probably not as complicated, or as fussy as people may suggest.

Meet The Beast…

I’ve heard that one should name their sourdough starter. I think this is to reduce the likelihood of forgetting to feed it – you’re less likely to forget Louis Pasteur than you are “the sourdough starter” I guess.

While I deliberated on a name for mine, I referred to it as ‘The Beast in the Fridge’, and the name stuck. It’s fitting, I guess… Knowing little about how to maintain it, I let The Beast get out of hand until I had nearly half a kilo of the stuff. Though if I’d thought of Louis Pasteur sooner, I probably would have gone for that.

If you know nothing about maintaining a sourdough starter; there is a fine balance between starving the poor thing, and becoming a slave to its hunger, which in my case, resulted in a rapid exponential growth.

I live in a small household of people who prefer not to eat bread every day, so I make just one loaf a week. The recipe I use only requires 50g of The Beast, so you can imagine what a pickle I’d gotten myself into with almost half a kilo of it!

It forced me to get a bit creative with recipes. The internet is full of recipes to use up so-called sourdough starter discard – what I call The Dormant Beast (The Beast’s less demanding friend). Most of these recipes seem to be cakes – trying not to make too many cakes (to watch my figure!). Though I did make one batch of sourdough pancakes (I couldn’t resist).

I discovered beautiful seed cracker (which have become a household staple) and granola bar recipes, and tried out pizza dough and pasta. Loving the experimental cooking!

Finally I’ve taken back control from The Beast, and aside from being a bit temperamental on occasions, it serves me well.

Back to the bread

After combining The Beast with water and flour, I let that sit for a bit to do it’s thing. Then, add some salt and knead it.

Most of the recipes I’ve found suggest a folding technique instead of kneading the sourdough. I tried this for my first 3 loaves, and it didn’t work for me though. Not sure what I was doing wrong, but I’m not convinced! Kneading the dough has given me much better results, and I kinda like kneading. Bonus: it works out any frustration or stress!

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Then I let my dough sit around for a long time to proof. I’m still not sure how long is needed – again recipes vary a lot. And I’ve varied it a lot. And it depends on temperature and a whole bunch of other factors. But I leave it overnight in a cool place and that seems to do the trick.

Before putting it in the oven, a baker must do a signature! This is the cut that’s made on the top of the loaf to allow for the loaf to rise. I’ve seen some beautiful patterns! Mine are not there yet, but I’ll keep trying.

The Portfolio of Breads

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It may still be too early to tell, but I seem to now be able to consistently make a good loaf of bread, in terms of taste and texture.

The experimentation continues with trying to make a decent baker’s signature and diversifying my loaves!

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Watch this space for further developments!