and she was moving very slowly.

ladies and gentlemen, i promised you i would return to conclude my sourdough efforts, and in true lazy mitchell style, it has taken me god knows how long to do so. i say lazy, although once again other things have seduced my attention away; namely being elbow deep in maths projects for work; a state which taxes my brain to the point of total lack of energy.

i know, i know, excuses excuses, but i just want it on the record that it isn't like i didn't want to tell you about my sourdough. in fact, i have been dying to. it's basically the coolest thing i've done since i started this blog, in my opinion. that might just be me getting excitable at taking the diy-process to the next level, but working with live yeasts is cool. if i end up some sort of crazy bread lady who croons to her sourdough starter as she feeds it i will be entirely unsurprised. there's not a whole hell of a lot to do in these villages, and anthropomorphizing my bread seems like one of the more pleasant ways available to descend into an eventual total loss of sanity.

anyway, as i've said before, enough of the bullshit, and onto the bread. so we already know all about my starter, which had maybe a week and a half to stabilize and establish itself before i was gonna make anything with it. it's been a nice little routine-maker, feeding it daily. i stand and whisk in the kitchen as my brain slowly comes to life after the day's first coffee and cigarette (usually taken while inspecting the garden) and come up with the things i'm gonna do over the course of the day. i could get used to having this thing with me for the rest of my life. there are ways in which you can slow down its activity, meaning you don't have to feed it as often, such as putting it in the fridge, but personally i like the regularity of the daily feeding, and you have to have it very active to bake with, so i keep it that way as i like to have the capacity to make whatever kind of bread i want, whenever i want.

having said that, sourdough does involve some prep the previous day (if you're not quite as organized a cook as you want to be, like myself, you'll find that getting into this habit gives you way more of a sense of being super on it and in control than is necessary). the technique i used for my first set of loaves, wholemeal sourdough, was my trusty daniel stevens' river cottage bread handbook; and it goes a little something like this:

basic wholemeal sourdough

makes 2-3 loaves

for the sponge:
500g strong wholemeal wheat flour
600ml warm water
a ladleful of very active sourdough starter

for the dough:
600g wholemeal wheat flour, plus extra for dusting
25g salt

before you go to bed, make the sponge. mix all the dry ingredients together by hand in a large bowl or plastic container. mix thoroughly, squeezing out floury lumps if you come across them. put the lid on the container, or put the bowl in the plastic bag until morning.

when i went to bed, mine looked like this:

by morning it looked like this:


the next day, mix in the flour and salt, and squash it all together, addng more flour or water as necessary, to form a soft, easily kneadable, sticky dough. turn it onto a clean work surface, and knead for about ten minutes until smooth and springy.

form the dough into a tight round, flour it all over and place it in a clean bowl. like so:

cover with a plastic bag and leave to rise for an hour. then you should end up with something like this (which since the book says don't expect much rise at first, is a bit of a shock):


tip it out onto the work surface, form it into a round again, and return to the bowl to rise for another hour. repeat this process once, or even twice more. you will notice the dough becoming increasingly airy. like so:



and so:

after the final rising period, tip the dough out onto the work surface and deflate it by pressing all over with your hands. divide into two or three, and shape into loaves. coat with flour, then transfer the loaves to well-floured wooden boards, linen cloths, tea towels or proving baskets. like so:



lay a plastic bag over the whole batch to stop it drying out, and leave to prove until almost doubled in size; which could be anything from 1-4 hours depending on the temperature of the dough and the vigour of your starter. mine took just over an hour:



when the loaves are almost ready, preheat the oven as high as it will go, put a baking stone or heavy baking tray inside, and place a roasting dish on the bottom shelf. put the kettle on. have a spray bottle full of water, aserrated knife and an oven cloth ready, as well as a peel or rimless baking sheet if you are using a baking stone.

when the loaves are ready, transfer them to the hot tray, or one at a time to the peel. slash the tops with a serrated knife (i didn't do this for mine, cos i could see natural cracks had formed in proving). put the tray in the oven, or slide each loaf onto the stone, pour some boiling water into the roasting dsh, and shut the oven door as quick as you can.

turn the heat down after about 10 minutes to 200 degrees c/gas mark 6, if the crust is still pale, 180 degrees c/gas mark 4 if the crust is browning noticeably, or 170 degrees c/gas mark 3 if the crust is browning too quickly. bake until the loaves are well browned and crusty, and sound hollow when you tap them on the bottom. this will take 30-50 minutes depending on the size and shape of your loaf.

so i totally forgot to photograph my finished loaves, because i'm an idiot. here is what was left the morning after baking:


not much, as you can see. i made a big one for casa mitchell, and two smaller ones to give to my baking guinea pigs, my boss aled, (who actually sulks if he doesn't get any bread when i'm baking), and my american friend ed, who i think i've mentioned before, because he and i trade garden produce and food stuff all the time. i'm still waiting to hear from them, but i'm expecting good things, because the crust on this was amazing. i think it's the longer proving time and exposure to air, but i am serious when i say i might have found crust nirvana. i'm glad i didn't slash my loaves, as to be honest, i think combined with the cracks that happened from me shaping them into a round, it would have looked ugly and created a bizarre risen shape, not to mention disrupting the aforementioned crust. the bread itself tasted amazing, it had a kind of hoppy, beery note to it that i wasn't expecting given the sharp, almost pear drop notes my starter has taken on. this is my first venture into sourdough folks, but by no means will it be my last. it's such a pleasurable process that i'm finding it very difficult not to bake sourdough every day; about the only thing stopping me is my complete awareness of what such an excess of carbs would do to my body.