Thursday 11 August 2011

Trying New Things - Sour Dough

So this month Bruisemouse over at Living a Little Greener set herself, and any one wanting to join in the challenge, the task of learning something new.
I am learning to crochet and will have to take some photos of the granny squares I have completed.  However for a while now I have been wanting to try making sourdough and I decided that since i would be having time away from work I would get started on making a sourdough starter to be ready for my time off.
I found a lot of info at http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/  and I have been making the 7 day starter and tracking the progress.

I found the process to be simple and easy to follow but I had never seen a starter before and the pictures I was comparing to did not really help.
So these are the photos from my first round of Sourdough trials (I won't bore you with the instructions as they can all be found at the above website) but feel free to comment about the photos and the state of my starter.  I should also mention that I grew my starter on the kitchen bench and because the fire was going the room temperature was over 20 degrees.

Day 1
Flour and pineapple juice paste


Day 2
Doubling the mix
Day 3
Is it growing yet?

Are those bubbles I see?
Yes those are definitely bubbles
Day 4
Wow it is working, things are happening
Day 5
Things are really working now

Day 6
Starter gone crazy
Is this how it should look?

The left over starter to built up again after using some to make some bread

Well I guess it did work after all
The first rise

Splitting the mix for it's second rising

Shaped into loaves

Baked and looking tasty

Well I am not sure they rose as much as they were supposed to once in loaf shapes but they were very tasty and I will have another go next week.
I would love your feedback about how I went and any tips you have.

6 comments:

  1. Excellent work, Fiona! 10/10 and no red pen required for correcting!. I adore bread and as such cannot be trusted with baking it. So I am more than content to drool over your gorgeous loaves of sourdough from afar.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow your starter looks great - very bubbly. I've only just started doing sourdough too. Can't give you any tips 'cos I'm still on my learners. But my bread is tasting great and the kids love it. I had originally planned to only make one loaf a week but it gets eaten so quickly and the kids are always nagging for more.

    ReplyDelete
  3. These look amazing, Fiona. You should be really impressed with your efforts. You're ahead of me so there is no way I could be giving you any tip. I am looking forward to checking out that website. Looks like It could be very handy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well done Fiona, your loaves look fantastic. I'm fairly new to this sourdough business myself too, so only have limited experience.
    I must say playing with this method of baking is almost as addictive as soapmaking.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Awesome! Looks great. Love the photo of the starter when it was all bubbly- that's a happy starter!

    ReplyDelete
  6. wow, that looks great, I've been thinking about trying sourdough for a while......I need more details though, you won't bore me! There are so many options and I don't know which one to try, so I'd really like to know what worked for you. Also what flour did you use and where did you get it from? Trying to buy bulk organic flour in the South Burnett is a challenge, so I'm wondering what my options are slightly further afield (ie Kilcoy direction!).

    ReplyDelete

I'd love to hear your thoughts...
Thanks for taking the time to comment