Sourdough

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This isn't any sort of recipe, it's just everything delicious that was left in my house stacked on top of bread. Cheese, bacon, caramelized onion, possibly avocado. 

Making my own sourdough starter this month was fun. It's fun to leave something to rot  ferment on your counter until it smells disgusting  alive and then make food out of it that is actually delicious.

Or at least, that smells delicious. I'm not much of a bread person. I don't think gluten is very healthy, and bread's deliciousness level is not high enough to overcome my vague feeling that I'd be better off if I didn't eat any of it. As opposed to the deliciousness level of certain (raw) cookies that will propel me happily into an early grave. I tried a few slices and they were good, but mostly the bread went to waste because my boyfriend who DOES love to eat bread doesn't like to slice it with the piss-poor bread knife that we have. Really, it might as well be made of plastic. Maybe YOU like bread? And have a real bread knife. If you do, you should try making your own sourdough, because it's fun and the smell is divine. And maybe you'll be more successful with your crumb than I was. I actually made three loaves with the wheat starter and wasn't quite satisfied with the look of any of them, though the flavour was good. And again, the smell was intoxicating. We actually just stood in the kitchen for minutes on end huffing the loaves after they came out of the oven.

Russian Rye loaf was deemed an instant success. It was very strongly
flavoured, though. Not made for peanut butter toast.

Dough, put down for a nap.

I cheated and baked my bread in a cake pan. It looks like a very pretty boulder.

Why are all the holes in the middle? Probably because I was lazy about
kneading in the production leaven.

The third loaf (baked in a loaf tin) had an okay crumb. Apparently I didn't even feel
the second one was worth photographing because it was too brick-ish.

Post bread-making, my starter was more excited about life than ever. I should
probably have a fourth go, but I shoved him in the fridge instead. Not so
much to use later, but to avoid washing the container.

I'm loving participating in Daring Bakers, but they are much nicer and cheerier than I am. I mean, look at this blog-check line:


"Our Daring Bakers Host for December 2011 was Jessica of My Recipe Project and she showed us how fun it is to create Sour Dough bread in our own kitchens! She provided us with Sour Dough recipes from Bread Matters by AndrewWhitley as well as delicious recipes to use our Sour Dough bread in from Tonia George’s Things on Toast and Canteen’s Great British Food!"