It only takes a week to make one loaf....

Well I've done it. I've entered into the world of making bread. And not just any bread, sourdough bread. When you buy it at the shops, it's a quick warm-up in the oven and tastes great. What you don't know is it takes about a week just to get the starter to the point of making a loaf.
This all started because the Daily Mail (a national newspaper) printed an article about how sourdough bread is the best bread you can get because it doesn't have all the preservitves as the store bought bread. It's made only with water and organic white flour and lots of natural yeast from the air. My father-in-law started buying it at the store, but the cost as adding up a we were eating a loaf every other night. The article had said that it was really easy to make, so we looked it up and I found this recipe.http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/2791/sourdough-bread.aspx

Of course what I didn't realize when I started this project that it was under the catagory of "challenging" and I've never really baked in my life (successfully anyways).


It starts with measuring out flour and water into a large bowl and covering it with a wet tea towel and letting it pretty much rot. However if it smells funny or gets moldy, no good. With little experience with baking, of course I measured everything wrong and wondered why my starter was really watery. Once it gets bubbly, like the picture , you can "feed it", as the recipe tells you. Then another day and finally you can make the dough, but after you make the dough you have to let it rise twice so that's almost another 24 hours.  I did figure out I had measured the ounces wrong I created a second starter which has worked much better.



This is actually a picture of my secod starter, but this is what the recipe means when they say bubbly

The dough is pretty easy to make. Getting it to look like the store bought loaves is a completely different matter. My first loaf with my first started tasted ok, but my dough was a little too stick and some flour didn't get mixed so there was cooked flour in the middle of the loaf. I have just finished making a second loaf with my second (much better) starter and as you can see by the picture it came out much better. Whether it tastes better is another matter. I'm waiting for my FIL to get home so we can all try it together. I'll let you know soon how it comes out.

This is the first loaf with the first starter. I burnt the edges making it really hard and you can see the uncooked flour on top



The second loaf with the second starter. I started this last tuesday, so I'm hoping this time it's worth the wait. But it does look much better than the last one.

 If you have any questions let me know. It sounds like a lot of steps and alot of time. But over all it really only takes a few minutes here and there and then it sits on the counter top. The hardest part is timing the second raise of the dough so that I'm not doing it in the middle of the night. I haven't quite figured out how to get it completely double in size, but I'll get there. The second loaf rose alot more so it does come alot down to the starter. Also you will go through tons of flour, so prepared. I'm also working on getting the oven just right so I don't burn the edges but cook the inside. It's going to take some fine tuning, but I'll get there.

oíche mhaith