Sourdough Starter Recipe

50g rye flour

50g plain unbleached flour

100g filtered water

Mix ingredients well together in a jar and place a lid or fabric over the top of the jar, do not screw a lid on as this can lead to an explosion. When you come to feed your starter for the first 3 days, pour some of the starter out (this is called discard) of the jar, leaving behind 50g of starter, before feeding it the same amount you used to make it (50g rye flour, 50g unbleached flour, 100g filtered water) do this process daily for 7 days before you try to use it for something that requires rising (i.e., bread). Different recipes will tell you to change the amounts you add, but honestly, I have found this works, and if you feel you need more water, just add a little. After 7 days, your starter will be mature enough to make bread. Before it is mature, you can use the discard to make fantastic sourdough pancakes, among other things.

Dry ingredients

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2Tbs sugar (optional)

½ tsp sea salt

2tsp baking powder

1tsp baking soda

Wet ingredients

1 cup sourdough starter (discard or active)

2 large eggs

1 cup milk

3 Tbs butter

Mix the wet in one bowl and mix the dry in a separate bowl, then slowly add the wet to the dry bowl and use a whisk, spoon, or electric mixer until it is smooth. Cook as you do any other pancake and serve with your desired toppings (maple syrup, berries, ice cream). If you mix this up and set it in the fridge overnight, there is a more complex flavor that sourdough is so well known for. It tastes great. My eldest son (8 years old) loves this recipe, he cooks the pancakes.

Okay, a sourdough starter is seriously hardy stuff; some people will keep it even if it's gone moldy, I'm not saying I would, and I'm not suggesting you do the same. Still, some people scraped off the top, took some of the starter from the inside, and started with a new jar with the same starter. One thing you can't come back from, which happened to me, is Maggots! Yes, maggots. I'm not gonna lie; I felt defeated when I found little worm-looking things swimming around in my starter. My starter was compromised and not in a way that could be rectified by anything other than scrapping the batch and starting again. It wasn't surprising, considering I was on an off-grid farm, and it was the tail end of summer, so the flies were desperate for moisture. It was pretty likely to happen, especially since the place I was keeping it was on the kitchen counter next to the cooker. I did this for the cooker's warmth, so it was in eyesight, and I wouldn't forget to feed it. I, of course, had a lid on top, but I distinctly recall one day seeing the lid slightly off as my youngest son had been over there to sneak a peak at the starter. I thought I had put the lid back on soon enough, but clearly I hadn't. Thank goodness we hadn't used the starter in three days, so we wouldn't have had any of the soiled batch, which saved us a stomach ache.

After the maggot mishap, it was time to find a new place to house my starter where it was less likely to be compromised. Here are the places I came up with:

Bread box
In a cold oven
In the fridge
In the pantry cupboard.

Did you know sourdough tells you when it's hungry? Yup, that's right! If it smells like yogurt, it's well-fed, but if it smells like cheese, it needs a good feed. You'll also tell by its appearance when it's less bubbly or starts to form a liquid on the top. You don't have to remove the liquid; stir it back into the starter before feeding. Be careful of infrequent feeding, as that is how you can end up with mold.

Make sure there is 30-50g of starter in your jar, then add the following:

50g rye

50g unbleached flour

100g filtered water

Combine well and cover.

Let's face it: Picture-perfect bread isn't time-efficient. Still, it makes the beauty of sourdough bread making that much more unique and special. I wanted the first loaf I made to be beautiful and Instagram-worthy, and, to my delight, it looked pretty good. Though slightly sticky, the inside of the bread was still wonderful and flavourful. (The sticky inside was due to our oven lacking a good seal.)

You need some kind of Dutch oven or casserole dish to back bread that looks like this. You'll also need some beans or rice to put at the bottom of your oven or dish under your bread so the bottom doesn't burn. The trick of cooking sourdough bread is…

Folding the dough (this gives it those wholes everyone loves to see in a sourdough loaf)
Refrigerating the dough (this makes it easy to score, allows the yeast to feed on the gluten, and enhances the flavor of the loaf)
Preheating the Dutch oven
Scoring your overnight chilled dough
Cooking with the lid on for 30-45 minutes
Removing the lid and cook for a further 30-45 minutes

Bear in mind that cooking times vary depending on your oven. If you have an issue with the seal on your oven, you may end up with results similar to mine, such as sticky interior bread. Give yourself grace when making your first 10 or so loaves, knowing that you're learning and not every loaf will come out perfect or the same as the last.

Here is a great bread recipe… The Ultimate Homemade Sourdough Bread by Joshua Weissman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJpIzr2sCDE

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Good luck in your sourdough-making endeavors. Please share your progress below, as I'd love to see what you make and how you go with feeding your starter.