Steve's website

This is our simple website - running on a beaglebone black, it hosts our favourite recipes and cakes, and things that interest us. There's an area for the kids for when they start to learn computing at school, and a personal blog for us all

Breads

    Sourdough

    Whilst this is great, be prepared to make it day in day out until you end up with just too much

    
    Starter
    Warm water 
    150g Rye flour 
    350g strong white flour 
    
    Bread
    200g Starter dough 
    100g rye flour 
    400g strong white bread flour 
    350ml warm water 
    2 tsp salt 
    
    

    To make the starter, mix 50ml of warm water with 25g rye flour and 25g strong white flour, stir well, cover and set aside for 24 hours. Next day add the same ingredients again and mix thoroughly. Cover and set aside in a warm place for 24 hours.

    Next day, add 100ml warm water, 50g of each flour to the starter and mix well, cover and set aside in a warm place for 24 hours.

    On the fourth day, should see some bubbles and should be smelling slightly acidic. Chuck three quarters of the starter away and add in 25g of rye flour and 125g of strong white flour. Add in 150ml of warm water and mix well, cover and set aside in a warm place for 24 hours.

    Next day, repeat, throw three quarters away and add 25g rye flour and 125g strong white flour, cover and leave somewhere warm

    Next day, hurray, can actually use it, so use 200g for the bread loaf and add in the flour and water as before. Keep repeating this step for as long as you want to use the starter.

    To make the loaf add the 200g starter dough to the warm water and whisk together, follow this with the flour and salt. Mix the dough well and leave for 10 minutes covered.

    Knead the sticky dough on a worktop for a couple of minutes until the dough holds together. Once the dough holds together quickly fold into itself and place back into a bowl. Leave for another hour as before in a warm place. Once the dough has doubled in size, knock the dough back to release some of the air.

    Shape the dough into 2 equal sized balls, cover and leave to rise in a cool place for about 12 hours ie. overnight. A slow rise gives your bread more of a sour flavour.

    Preheat the oven to 250 deg C

    Turn out the dough onto a floured tray, slash the top 3 or 4 times and dust off any excess flour. Carefully place in the centre of the oven. Add a little steam with ice cubes to help form a crust. Bake for about 30 minutes until golden. If the bottom is not crispy turn upside down and place back in the oven for a further 10 minutes.