Adventures in sourdough

    I mentioned in passing recently that I was starting to make sourdough bread, and having produced some good loaves lately I thought I'd pass on what has been working for me in the hope that that helps anyone else who may be experimenting, because the frustrating thing for a beginner is that every recipe/set of instructions I come across differs in some way from every other one, and one piece of advice given can be the exact opposite of the next one I find.

    I made my wheat starter according to Andrew Whitley's book Do/Sourdough, and now when I use some I replenish it with equal quantities of flour and water - whether in the fridge or sitting out in the kitchen it's bubbling away happily (but I have frozen a bit as a back up).

    Wanting a loaf made with white wheat flour I tried this recipe by Annie Rigg. It gave good bread, but the method seems a bit convoluted when compared to this one by Patrick Ryan which is much more straightforward and has achieved the best results of all.

    The loaf above (using Patrick Ryan's recipe but not dividing the dough in two) was begun yesterday afternoon using room-temperature starter. It was mixed, kneaded for 20 minutes (to achieve the windowpane stage he shows in his video), left in a warm place for 3 hours then knocked back, shaped, and put in a floured cloth-lined bowl in the fridge overnight. First thing this morning it was taken out and left in a warm place for a couple of hours, then it was baked in a Le Creuset casserole following Annie Rigg's instructions. As you see, the crust is well-fired, so next time I might leave the casserole lid on for an extra ten minutes and take it off just for the last ten, but otherwise it has turned out beautifully and is exactly what I was aiming for.

Comments

[Toffeeapple]

That looks a good loaf but I am afraid that if I attempted such a feat, I would meet with disaster.

[Mr Cornflower]

Give it a go - it is a bit tricky and you will have some false starts - our very first loaf had the consistency of a brick - but the satisfaction when you get it right is immense. Incidentally if you read The Times there's a good story in today (27th November) about a controversy in the world of sourdough - commercial bakers are lobbying for a more relaxed labelling rule which would let them add flour improvers and yeast and still call it sourdough.

[Toffeeapple]

Thank you for your encouragement Mr. C, but I have never yet been able to make a starter for it.

As for your last paragraph - that would make it as reliable as a politician's promise!