It's a freezing 10 degrees where I live right now, and I've just come in to have a homebrewed stout in front of the fire and sort out the sourdough bread. It's been a fabulous day of pottering - doing seemingly mundane chores but ones that lifted the fog that's been hanging over me all week.
There's something about doing things that just make life better in simple ways, when no one is pressuring you to do them. No demands, just following my whim and fancy as I potter around the house and garden.
I thought I'd walk you through the process of making my sourdough bread and how it's just a part of my ordinary day. It took me ages to get around to making bread as I thought it'd be terribly time consuming, but it's not - not once you have a system in place. So I thought I'd share my system and how my day might look like with bread at the start and end of it. It's really, really easy!
9.47 am Late Start to a Saturday
After a coffee or two (yeah, okay, so my coffee fast didn't last long, but it's the weekend, okay?' and a late lazy start to the day with my honeyed one, I threw about 6 cups of flour into a bowl - I say about, as I could only find the 3/4 cup measure so did heaped cups with that plus an extra bit for good measure.
The starter I keep in the fridge, and I don't bother bringing it to room temperature as it seems to work just fine the way it is. I reckon I added 2 cups of starter to my mix plus about 3 tsps of salt. I usually do this in 2 bowls, but I want to save on washing up, so I'll just make some smaller loaves in loaf tins instead and divide this dough in two.
I then add another couple of cups to the starter, mix it with enough water to make a medium thick paste and put her back in the fridge for next week. She'll bubble on nicely. I'm wondering if I need Mum to babysit her when we're in Bali next week. If I show her this headline maybe she'll charge me.
Then, I add lukewarm water to the bowl, enough to make a dough - but here's the rub - I DON'T KNEAD IT - just stir it enough to mix the flour through so it's a wet dough, but still fairly thick and what you'd imagine dough consistency to be. Then, I leave it by the window in the sunshine with a big plate on it for a lid - for around eight hours, though today was six hours, so that just goes to show that this really isn't a fine art.
Now, I go and enjoy my day - including bugging J. to work out a thingie to connect the chimney to the fire bath, finding that the coastal banksia is starting to flower, and figuring out a mini greenhouse to keep my chilli plant alive and knocking up a makeshift door for my mini garden shed. As we're headed overseas, we wanted to make sure the shed was reasonably waterproof to protect the gardening paraphrenalia.
4.05 PM - COMING IN WITH DIRTY HANDS AND COLD FACES
Then it's time for a quick knead - not too much, as you don't want to deflate all those lovely bubbles that say that wild yeast is doing it's thang. Just enough so it's not too sticky. Add flour to make this happen if needed.
The next step was adding some yummy seeds. Fennel and sunflower in one, and the other was sunflower, pepitas and cacao nibs, which aren't sweet but have this lovely crunch and subtle flavour. After sprinkling those goodies on, fold the ends over a few times (I did it on a plate so as not to make a mess on the bench), shape and place in a loaf tin. Can you spot the bubble on the right hand picture? It's there because I didn't handle it overmuch.
Then I gently place them in loaf tins (I'll show you how I do it in the dutch oven another day for a more rustic looking loaf) and place them by the fire to prove for another two hours. Sometimes I only prove it for an hour - really depends on the temperature.
I ask Jamie to pour me another brew and put on some reggae tunes on vinyl. Love that warm crackle sound. Today's tune is brought to you by Zion Train.
After a few hours and some more tunes and stout, we turn the oven on to about 200 degrees and pop them in the oven with some baking paper on top. This helps keep the heat and moisture in without burning the top. We cook it for about 35 minutes, then with the paper off for about another ten.
8.05 PM Australia v France World Cup
J is watching football, I'm steeming, and the bread is cool enough to eat. Happy Saturday.
So, on Sunday morning we have fresh sourdough bread. Too easy! As they say here in Aussieland.
How is your weekend going?
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