Simple Sourdough Solution

Have you tried to make sourdough? Did you once have a sourdough starter, named and nurtured at the back of your fridge? What happened to him (or her)?

If the answer is, "Marvin the sourdough is alive and well, thanks. He makes delicious sourdough every time and I love him!" this post is not really for you.

If, on the other hand, your forays into sourdough have been less than Marvin-marvellous (sorry), I have a suggestion for you. It's a Cunning Plan, of sorts, that may or may not be cheating.

My own sourdough exploits have been disappointing. I understand how to make sourdough starter and I have, once or twice, raised a delicious sourdough loaf.

'Once or twice' isn't really enough though, is it? Not when your day is fully busy and you have set aside this long to make bread for the family. The results have got to be decent every single time or it's just not worth the effort.

My sourdough loaves seemed either to not rise, to taste unpleasantly sour or both. I soon reverted back to my tried and tested everyday favourite bread recipe.

To boot, I now discover, even so-called sourdough loaves from professional bakers are often not entirely what they seem. I had assumed that real bakers make sourdough using a vigorous sourdough starter that they had cultured using their amazing secret professional baker qualifications* plus extra flour and water. *Some do, I believe. Some absolutely cheat. They put some sourdough in there but they really make the bread rise using regular bakers' yeast. Yeah. It seems that you can call bread 'sourdough' if it contains some sourdough. And perhaps that's ok. Perhaps the sourdough starter gives the bread flavour, even if it can't be relied upon to make the dough rise.

Well, we can also play at that game. Here's the plan:

• Every time you bake, take a handful of dough out of the batch and keep it in a jar in the fridge (where Marvin used to live, bless his soul)
• When next you bake, take the dough from the previous batch and incorporate it into the new batch.

Simple.

This way, I figure, you're developing the mature/sourdough flavour of the dough without going the whole hog and hassle of maintaining a sourdough starter. If you bake regularly (even fortnightly would be fine) you are refreshing the contents of the jar frequently enough for it not to go icky and, I hope, creating a better flavour of bread with no added effort.

That's my jar of pseudo-sourdough magic, pictured at the top of this article: just a handful of dough, maturing quietly. In case you were wondering, the fruit in the background are only there to look pretty, which they do, don't they?

I'm at your service...

Get all the bread recipes here and learn how to make your bread truly beautiful here.

Let me know your bread-based challenges and I will help you to succeed. Leave a comment or email me.

Happy baking :)