Monday 15 April 2013

Misadventures in Sourdough!

It's taken me awhile (well, a day or two) to come to terms with my first (note, I said first, I mean to succeed!) failure at making a sourdough starter.

What went wrong?  Hmm, don't know!  Could have been too warm, shouldn't have used yoghurt, the moon was in the constellation of pisces...who knows!  At day 2 all looked promising but the desired bubbles did not appear, I left it another day, still no bubbles and the smell was far from pleasant.  Bin!

Anyways I have done me some more reading about the dark art of sourdough; and I am going to try a starter from just flour and water (although there is some debate on whether the water should be filtered!?).    I will report back.

Thursday 11 April 2013

Adventures in Sourdough - The Inbetween Day

There is nothing to add to the sourdough starter today; it's resting in a warm place. As yet, no bubbles!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Adventures in Sourdough - Day 2

Here we are, day 2 on my sourdough challenge.  My starter culture had thickened and I did have to give it a stir to combine the separated liquid, it really did look like yoghurt.  The next step was to add flour, 4oz (120g) of strong white flour to the yoghurt mixture and mix well.  Now it just looks like a thick batter, here is a view down the next of the jar ...

Sourdough Starter Day 2


Here's another of the outside of the jar, just because...

Sourdough Starter Day 2


The mixture now needs to remain at room temp for 2 days; at the end of which the mixture should be full of bubbles and smell pleasantly sour, apparently.  Heres hoping!

Tuesday 9 April 2013

Adventures in Sourdough - Day 1

Inspired by last night's episode of Paul Hollywood's Bread, I decided to take on the challenge of baking sourdough bread.  It's not a quick process, the first step is to make your sourdough starter culture which will take at least 5 days to cultivate and be ready for use in your first loaf!

There are many, many, many recipes for sourdough starters.  Had I saw Paul Hollywood's recipe first I would probably have used that, but I didn't; so I used this one instead.

So, the main protagonists in day 1 are:  5 tablespoons of live full fat plain yoghurt and 6fl oz skimmed milk.  Gently warm the milk and mix into the yoghurt, pop into a airtight container, I used a kilner jar, place in a warm place for 12 - 24 hours to thicken.  Here is how it looks now.

Sourdough Starter Day1

Stayed tuned!