My first sourdough loaf. 07-05-2013. Beginners success.
Ah yes! First ever blog also!!!!!
I started my adventure sometime in March/April this year with a wish to re-produce a bread like the rustic artisan loaf made by a bakery in a nearby town called Knysna. Trouble was, it's a 45 minute drive......... for a loaf of bread? I don't think so -.
After a while researching and surfing the www, I found "The Fresh Loaf" and one of the members, very kindly, helped me get going with my starter (see: sourdoughlady - wild yeast starter.) Still being very confused by all my new found knowledge, I messed around and played with this for a while. No haste, but I did develop a good, strong, starter from the very beginning. I think I was a little intimidated by all the strange terminology and in total awe of the wonderful bread everyone seemed to produce.......
So now I had a starter, happy and bubbly - I just had to do something with it! I downloaded a couple of ebooks from Amazon and eventually settled on Peter Reinhart's "Artisan Bread Every Day". His common sense approach and easy to follow instruction was all I needed. My first loaf was great and my third ended in the trash (but thats the only one) so there have been more successful loaves than not.
Six months down the line and my recipe has almost no resemblance to the original, progressing from ordinary baking sheet to pizza stone to cast iron pot, but still a real pleasure to eat. My favourite is olive and rosemary but my husband likes the very cheesy, so there is plenty to choose from and I bake at least twice a week!
If I could figure out how to upload more than one photo to a blog I would. Perhaps someone could tell me how!
Thank you Fresh Loaf and all your wonderful contributors........ I'm so very glad to be part of the community.