The Stuff of Life

I don't remember when I learned to make bread, but I remember helping my mother to shape rolls when I was very young: she made nine loaves of bread each weekend, and they'd go in the freezer so that we had homemade bread all week. Aged around 9 or 10, I began to take on this task myself, although I had to stand on a chair to be tall enough to reach into the deep bowl that could take all the dough. Imagine my horror when I discovered for the first time what other people thought of as bread and ate every day, the horrible squodgy white stuff that comes pre-sliced in plastic bags and is designed to keep for as many days as possible.

Although I've made bread for years, I have only recently tried making proper sourdough bread, and it really is fabulous. I was worried that it would be difficult and time-consuming, but in fact, it is neither. The bread takes a long time to rise and so you have to plan a day or so in advance, but the amount of time required to mix it and shape it is very small. The starter culture takes about a week to prepare, but again requires only a little attention each day.

So here are my instructions for making a starter culture, adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible.

Ingredients organic whole wheat flour bottled water bread flour (optional)

Equipment large glass jar, 1 litre capacity

In order to avoid contamining the starter, everything you use (spoon, bowl, etc) should really be extremely well cleaned. If at any point coloured streaks appear in the starter, throw it out and start again - it has been contaminated and will make you ill.

Day 1. Mix together 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup bottled water in a bowl to make a stiff dough, adding more water a little at a time if it is required. Transfer to glass jar. Cover with clingfilm and leave for 48 hours.
Day 3. The starter should look a little bubbly and a bit like batter. Remove about half of it (about half a cup) and add another 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup bottled water and mix well. Cover with clingfilm and leave for 24 hours.
Day 4. Again remove about half the starter and add about 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup bottled water and mix well. Cover with clingfilm and leave for 24 hours.
Day 5. The starter may be active by now: if it expanded to about double, and may have collapsed again afterwards, then it is. If it isn't yet active, repeat instructions for day 4 until it does this. I find the best way to check the expansion is to put an elastic band around the glass at the level of the starter once it's been fed, and then you can see how much it has risen by. Once the starter is active, remove half, and feed it 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup water, and leave it for a couple of hours. At this point it can be refrigerated.
Beyond Day 5. For the first two weeks it should be fed 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 cup water about three times a week (after removing half the existing starter each time) to build up the starter culture and mature it. After that it can be fed less often, whenever you make bread, or a minimum of once a week.

I gave up on bottled water after day 5 and I used fizzy water as my bottled water because that was all I had, but I don't think fizzy or still makes a huge amount of difference. I used wholewheat flour because I prefer it to rye flour, but in Germany rye flour is always used. Initially I fed the starter with bread flour (i.e. from Day 2-5) once I'd started it off with wholewheat flour, but now I'm making bread I'm using wholewheat flour again because I prefer the flavour that it gives. So now my starter is happily in the fridge, bubbling away to itself, and I can use it for making the most delicious bread I've ever had (recipes to follow in another post).

Oh, and my starter is called Honorius.