Long time, no post!

Ahhh! It’s been crazy here recently. I just seem to have so much to do and not enough time to do it! This is a quick summary of things I meant to write a proper post about but just didn’t get round to it. Hopefully soon I’ll be up to date!

I’ve been baking sourdough for nearly a month now and getting much better at it. I tried keeping Horace and Fergus in the fridge and feeding them less often but that didn’t seem to be successful. Fergus turned proteolytic leading to flat, dense bread as the gluten in the dough was broken down. I took them out of the fridge and am now feeding them twice a day which they seem to be much happier about.

Evidence of a proteolytic starter – the gluten is breaking down resulting in a loss of elasticity in the dough

Result – once released from the proving basket, the loaf flattens and splits producing a dense bread with lots of surface splits

Feeding Horace and Fergus twice a day results in a lot of starter to discard. We’ve experimented with different ways to quickly use up excess so it’s not wasted. Crumpets and flatbreads were lovely but very time consuming to cook. Now we’ve settled on pancakes, which are quick and easy to make and also excellent for eating cold or reheated. Even as sandwich bread for packed lunches!

Making sourdough pancakes

I’ve also had the pizza oven fired up recently, making sourdough pizza and attempting to bake a loaf in there. Limited success on both counts but I intend to practice a lot more over the summer!

Making sourdough pizza

First attempt at baking sourdough in the pizza oven

I’ve now started making a much wetter dough which produces nice big air bubbles, although it is harder to handle initially. I’m also adding olive oil to the dough which makes the bread a bit more tender. I’m so pleased with my experiments so far and have invested in a couple of proper proving baskets to try out a different loaf shape too!

In other baking news, I recently made a cake for a local ringing event.

A bell-shaped cake… it got painted gold shortly after this photo was taken (I.e. in the frantic 5 minutes before my lift arrived when I decided it needed something more)

So far, so ordinary.

BUT LOOK WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE INSIDE!!!

Best thing I have ever made!!

It’s a bell-shaped battenberg cake, and it actually worked!! So pleased. Can you tell?

I’ve also made a lot of strawberry jam recently. What with it now approaching peak strawberry season at the market, we occasionally have left-overs, especially if the weather has not been great. I’ve had over 5 kg of strawbs so far and made a lot of strawberry and redcurrant and strawberry and rhubarb jam. Both lovely and delicious with hot buttered sourdough toast!

Well, I think that’s a successful tour of my recent foodie experiments. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep more up-to-date from now on!