On the radio this morning Peter Florence was talking about Hay Festival. It seems, in this anniversary year of the festival that the performers are turning on the audience and asking them questions. Monty Don’s question is, “What is the last thing you made by hand?”
My answer is sourdough bread, baked over a period of 7 days, with the dough made on the evening of the 6th day and risen overnight, then knocked back and raised again for another 6 hours.
I have made bread for years and find that the making and rising and kneading of bread fits well around waiting for paint to dry and stretching legs and relaxing brain. In the past I have always used either yeast, which is lovely, or easy blend yeast which is easy and I have always been intrigued by the idea of sour dough. I have heard stories about bakers who have sour dough starter that has been handed down over years, like a family heirloom. It has a distinctive scent, taste. It takes time and a little care, to feed it and grow it and keep it alive. And if you can get the skill and the knack it will strengthen and grow until you have a very distinctive taste. At Hobbs House Bakery their leaven is 55 years old.
I wanted to grow my own and having begun I now feel like having different ones, with wholemeal and white and rye flour, but I was very nervous of the process.
So, the dough was much messier than I am used to, much more moist, and I made the mistake of putting it into too wide a container for its final proofing, but persisted and the end result is a loaf with a lovely texture, scent and taste and a jar of leaven still working and strengthening for the next loaf. Next time I will use a loaf tin I think.
I loved the time it took to make from the first stirring together of flour and water to the final kneading and proving for 6 hours ( could have left it for 8 but grew impatient).
There are so many recipes online for how to make a starter. I used this one, which was easy, although I didn’t use yogurt and only used about a teaspoon on raisins, and this one for the bread recipe, with improvisation thrown in, ie lots more flour as the dough was too sticky for my liking.
So, that was the last thing I made by hand, and this is the thing I am making by hand at the moment:
Happy anniversary Hay Festival.
Lovely piece, Jackie. A friend of mine, a veteran sourdough baker, inverts a metal bowl over the loaf for part of the baking time, so that it steams as well as bakes.
I’m still feeding my starter but haven’t actually baked a sourdough loaf yet!
Funny you should have a go at this as I’ve been thinking I shall have to try it too.
In all the cafe’s and restaurants here they serve sourdough and it’s lovely but it’s expensive and hard to find in the supermarkets and since being converted to making bread at home thought I have to give this a go.
So I shall.
I heard of a starter using rhubarb and yoghurt and the rhubarb is fab here so might try that.
Thanks for the post and the recipes I’ll let you know what mine comes out like.
Excellent. There’s a world of adventures before you with sourdough! I started off with a rye leaven, but I’ve now switched over to barley (for no real reason, except that I like the idea of barley.) It takes a while to find your own way with it – sourdough’s so much more responsive to the atmosphere around it, I’ve found. It’s a bit like working with raw timber rather than MDF… I’ve also taken a while to get the right moisture level – I like the honeycombing that a wet mix gives, but for the really open texture of, say, what I call a French peasant loaf, it needs to be a bit drier. Treat your leaven mean – they seem to like it
Use most of it each time, then load it with flour and water to a thick putty-like paste. After a while, the sourness will drop away. I keep it in the fridge if I’m going away, otherwise it’s on the kitchen window sill, where I can keep an eye on it, in case it tries to run off.
I can recommend Dan Lepard’s book, The Handmade Loaf – the photos are very, very appetising too.
Have fun!
Ah! The making of breads. Any kind of breads…for me, the connection to our ancient past, when we moved from hunter-gatherer to farmer, gives me a groundedness.
And the hares! You know how I love the Triple, so this quartet makes me smile.
Thank you, for all of this.
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It’s been years…I semi-gave up when I realised I couldn’t make bread as good as the bread from San Francisco. Maybe it’s time to try again.