mad about baking

Ever wanted to try your hand at a sourdough bread, but thought it was to complex or time-consuming? Well, it isn’t. True, it will take a few days to get it going, but it won’t really need much attention and it only takes a couple of minutes to do the initial feeding. I actually think it’s easier to make a sourdough rye than a white yeast-raised loaf. So give it a go and be amazed!

The sourdough starter is the first stage in producing sourdough bread. The second stage is the actual sourdough and the last the bread dough. Once you’ve got a good starter going the other two stages are childsplay (well, almost).

Preparation

Ingredients

• 80g Wholemeal Rye Flour (I use Doves Farm)
• 160g Water (warm but not hot)
• 1 tsp natural untreated honey

Method

1. Day 1: Mix 20g of the flour, 40g of the water and the honey in your plastic container. It is not necessary to mix it really well, the natural yeasts will do that for you. Cover and leave in a warm place for 24 hour.
2. Day 2: Mix in another 20g of flour and 40g of water and stir into the mixture, cover and return to its warm place.
3. Day 3: Repeat as for Day 2. The sour should show some activity by now.
4. Day 4: Repeat as above.
5. Day 5: Tadaa! You should now have a nice sourdough starter which will smell and taste acidic and is ready for the next stage. So, have a go and by the time you’ve got your sourdough starter going, I’ll post the next step in the production process.

Conny’s Tip

Honey contains a lot of natural yeasts, however, the cheap honey in the supermarket is always heat treated, which destroys these yeasts. Incidentally it also destroys a lot of enzymes which are good for you! I keep bees and make my own honey (but I don’t expect you to go that far). The next best thing is to buy some honey from a local beekeeper or a healthfood shop.