No 3 child

When No 3 was born last August I vowed I wasn’t having anymore children.  That was until we decided to start making bread from scratch.  Sourdough to be precise, made from a wild yeast starter that once established you have to feed and nurture.

Nicknamed ‘the kids’ I’ve suddenly found I’ve four additional mouths to feed and, quite frankly, they are almost as demanding as our brood.  At least with the children I can put them to bed before evening service and more often than not I’m not disturbed until ohh, at least 5.30 in the morning.

No3 Yeast

The ‘kids’ on the other hand need attention from the moment we enter the kitchen. Firstly, there’s the weighing out of the first batch of yeast to make bread. Then there the 1st feed and a small drink after which it does little other than mooch about in a bowl in the cosiest part of the kitchen for 8 hours whilst it contemplates rising a bit for the 1st prove. Feeding time again, a light massage (otherwise known as kneading) and then another little lounge whilst it proves a second time at which point it suns itself in the oven. Out again, it needs to cool for a couple of hours before the baker might actually get to eat something – well after you’ve feed the starter it’s evening snackette that is….

Taking on board that the bread is now flying out the door with a fair amount of repeat custom – seems quite a lot of people like it – we’re having to go through this process twice daily with all 4 of our starters.

Admittedly, we’ve kind of got into the swing of it now and the next step is to try and make bread from some beer.  I’m trying to find a brew that’s made from a wild rather than processed yeast which is proving hard to come by so we may well have to make our own (Ok, ok chaps I can here your groans from the office!)  In the meantime, Pete over at the Hopdaemon brewery is helpfully giving it a go for us with some wort  so we’re waiting with baited bread for the results…..

The finished product

Beer and bread have always been associated with one another which is odd considering nowadays commercial brewing yeast and baking yeast are literally two different animals. We’ve been making our own bread since opening 9 years ago, but always with conventional yeast, and the idea of making our own bread from a wild yeast that we had cultivated ourselves not only appealed to my masochistic side of doing things the hard way, but also my love of making something out of not a lot!

Basically, for the uninitiated or anyone with a life, the starter (otherwise known as a mother) is basically made by placing some grapes in a muslin bag and popping them into a sterilised bucket with some flour and water, leaving it for ten days and hoping for the best. After this time, you should have a pot of unpromising guck. To this you add more flour and water (known as er… feeding it) and after a few more weeks of plying it with food and water you eventually have a fizzy substance from which you can make bread. Each time you make a loaf you feed more local Crabble mill flour to the mother and she sits in her bucket ready for the next time you knead her (knead…need…., get it? Ok so I’m recycling a backlog of cracker jokes from Christmas….) Anyway, the good points of making bread this way is that it lasts for a good few days before you have to resort to a toaster, plus it should taste amazing.

Admittedly, it’s likely to be a denser loaf (the sort you know you’ve eaten!) and if you are gluten free, chances are you shouldn’t even look at it but hey, this real bread man….

So anyway, IF it works and that’s a big if, the idea is to sell locally made bread to local people and bring a semblance of a bakery back to the village. It’s unlikely that we’ll threatened Tesco’s monopoly in anyway, but if you fancy something a little less corporate all you’ll have to do is give us a call the day before baking day and, for a small fee, a nice old fashioned loaf will have your name on it (literally if you so wish!!).

No doubt there will be updates on this whole project – can’t believe it’s going to be simple otherwise the rest of the world would be doing it. Will keep you informed of all you knead to dough…. sorry couldn’t resist.