This is my first batch of sourdough bread. I’m surprised at the result, that it turned out as well as it did as everything went wrong. Bread is essential to me, I find it hard to live without it and sourdough bread is my favourite. At the end of the bread making class I attended I came home with a sourdough starter. Unsurprisingly I ended up neglecting the starter for a couple of weeks so when I finally got to it I wondered if it was still ok. Thinking about this, I believe not feeling confident meant it took me awhile to get to started on my sourdough journey. It takes commitment to start baking bread and now I have to care for my starter. At the class I attended, the teacher even named her starter Kevin. Giving the starter a name only added to my sense of responsibility as if I was taking home a pet. By the way my starter I call Chad, I’ve no idea why. Apart from neglecting the starter, when I did finally feed it, I misread the instructions and did it incorrectly and nothing much happened. Days later I fed it again and panicking a bit lost a sense of quantities and proportions. I ended up with starter escaping from the jar. The overflow went into the mix and then all the dough stretching began. Overnight the mix went into the fridge from where it actively tried to escape. Not knowing what else to do I pressed on the next day and finally got two loaves into the oven. After the first 20 minutes in the oven I realised I had another disaster. For whatever reason having the oven timer on turned off the heat so after 20 minutes I had strange looking loaves of bread. Leaving the bread there I heated up the oven again and now I was winging it. But look at the result. Of course the proof is in the cutting and tasting and was I surprised to have a lovely tasting chewy bread. By making mistakes every step of the way and not giving up I have learnt so much.
Living well on a shoestring 