Holy crap look what I just made

So for about 2 months……well could even be more, my sense of time sucks, but just for the sake of giving a round time we will say 2 months, my husband has been asking me to try a sourdough bread starter and make some sourdough bread. I love sourdough and honestly it was not lack of time so much as the amount of time actually spent tending to the task of making a starter that has made this take so long to happen. So really due to my procrastination and my great ability to sit and watch a quality reality TV show, play on my phone and peruse multiple magazines, I have taken this long to get to the task, shoot mad at myself only because I now see what I could have been eating the last two months.

To also continue being honest here, I have an issue with research….I like it way too much, why? Well because I like clicking about the internet and finding cool stuff, so I might start with a Google search of, “how to make a sourdough bread starter”, and somewhere along the way I end up at a website that shows how to make your own face wash or lotion or something like that. However, Sunday was a good day and my search finally let me to some great search results, the first was a simple recipe on one of those recipe sites (I kind of needed more for this task), the 2nd was a great site but the explanation was exorbitant and I lost my mind and my drive about 2 paragraphs in (I almost gave up on the idea for the day after seeing so much information) and then I did what many of us never do I clicked next page on the Google search and there it was, for me it was just right (you know kind of like Goldilocks finding her just right spot to fall asleep). This was a simple recipe I could comprehend and wrap my head around, oddly the measurements are only given in ounces and grams but I have a scale and we are good.

First go to StoneSoup and read the recipe and then you scroll and see the starter recipe.

I followed her pretty much verbatim and I have my first loaf today. I have to say I am impressed, it looks beautiful and tastes amazing.

So first I followed her steps for the Sourdough Bread Starter, for the yogurt I improvised with Vanilla yogurt since I did not have plain and if I waited until I got out to buy plain I surely would not be writing this post today so I made use of what I had. I put it in a mason jar and followed the instructions, now to be honest I kind of blew it on day 3, I did not pull and add that day, it slipped my mind, so yesterday, day 4 I pulled out the 200g (I basically pretended it was day 3), thought I may have blown it but the starter seems very forgiving.

I followed her recipe for using the 200g of starter but added the 1/4t of yeast as she recommends since it is not a ready starter just yet. I will not throw any starter away, so I may be baking and freezing a loaf per day and share them with friends.

If you were ever afraid that you could not be successful with a starter, think again, Jules Clancy at StoneSoup makes this task very achievable.

I used this for the yogurt

Here is the starter at the beginning

Here is day 2

Here is the pulled starter with yeast and the additional ingredients for her Rustic Sourdough Bread.

I let this sit more than 12 hours because the 12 hour mark fell in the middle of the night and I am not even remotely considering waking in the middle of the night to bake bread. I forgot to photograph the bowl this morning but it was about double in size. I was also thrown off because the mixture is more of a soupy dough, but I used a very generous amount of flour and folded the dough several times and when the consistency felt right I continued with the tea towel and warming the dish etc just as she suggested.

Ta Da….. it came out so beautiful, a nice crusty outside and a beautiful soft inside, amazing. I am so glad I chose to follow her recipe.

Here is the dish I cooked it in. I received this a few years back from my dear friend Coleen, I honestly did not make but one roast in it and then it was tucked under my counter in the pan cupboard. So super glad I remembered it was down there, it is the perfect dish for this recipe. Thank you Coleen for this beautiful dish, not sure it will make it back under the cupboard from now on.