Sourdough disaster!

Why oh why did I think I was ready to progress to sourdough??

I do enjoy baking bread, but if I’m being entirely honest, I’m not really a baker. For all my enthusiasm, more often than not I am only able to produce loaves which weigh more than human heads, and look rustic to the point of revulsion. Having said that, the bread I’ve made is always very tasty, and certainly more flavoursome than bought varieties (the delicious varieties available at Maison Mayci excluded).

So, with bullish confidence I decided to give sourdough a whirl (yes, I’m aware that this requires rather a leap, but there we are).

I did my research, albeit a low effort, Caz sort of research which entailed watching an episode of Paul Hollywood’s tv show, reading two articles on the internet and purchasing the wonderful Brilliant Breads, by one of my favourite Bake Off contestants, James Morton. All of these nodded to the fact that sourdough is ‘extreme bread making’, though I could see no evidence of such challenge in the instructions, which were clear and simple. It seemed to me that the ‘extreme’ nature of sourdough came through because of the sheer inconvenience of taking three days (or more) to bake a loaf of bread.As I said earlier: bullish.

Blithely I began my sourdough odyssey, finding an old kilner jar from the back of the cupboard and merrily writing ‘Suzie’ on it in my bestest handwriting (the reasoning being that I would be less inclined I kill something with a name. All this from a woman who can’t even keep basil alive!). I added the flour, tepid water and several sliced grapes to it, having chosen to follow Hollywood’s recipe on the BBC Good Food website, and Suzie was born! I introduced her to my husband and children and developed a sense of anticipation, eagerly checking her progress each morning. Even the husband asked after her!

In three days she had doubled in size and was bubbling away happily. So I duly tipped half away and ‘fed’ her. The next day she was ready to be used. How exciting!

I prepared my bread as directed by both James and Paul (by now my dearest friends). Then forgot it.

That’s the trouble with long proves. I get distracted (by ️️wine and a film in this case- 300 Ruse of an Empire, surprisingly boring). Anyway, I woke up at 5am this morning and remembered my poor dough, sat sadly on the dining table. Reassuring myself that it needed a long prove, I carried on regardless.

So far, so boring, right?

But no! By this point everything was going horribly wrong. Having fed Suzie after using her, she had developed a thick layer ofmurky liquid on top of the doughy stuff. I kept mixing it in to no avail. So I binned most of her and fed her a bit again. I’ve taken a picture which I will upload when I work out how. She’s not looking well. And, good god, she’s smelly! Apparently this is not bad thing, but it’s certainly making me question my compatibility with baking as an art form…

And so to the baking. Despite repeated proving, my little loaf remained just that: little. Being a naturally impatient person, I gave up and baked anyway. And then baked it again, as the Middle was raw.

All that that effort for such a teeny tiny loaf. Which weighs as much as a human head.

Maybe it’s me…