recipes
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This month FRAN STEVENS, aka The Food Wife, offers her method for creating your own sourdough starter and has some recipes to try too!
SOURDOUGH STARTER
It was all the rage at the start of the first lockdown but if you didn’t try it then you can still give it a go now. If you fancy trying to make a sourdough starter, all you need is a largish jar, flour, water and a little time. Soon you’ll have a bubbly little friend that will help you to make the most delicious creations.
Leaving the jar on the side in your kitchen should be enough to get it going. Too much heat and you’ll have an explosive disaster; too little and very little will happen. Once you’ve got it going, keep your starter in the fridge between bakes and bring it out to feed and refresh as needed.
You can use normal white flour but in my experience the best, most active, results come from dark rye flour. It makes a thick paste that expands to make a very active mousse-like starter.
Ingredients 50g flour 50g lukewarm water
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Use an elastic band on the outside of jar to mark the starting point of your mix and then you’ll easily be able to see how much it’s grown.
Method Start with your clean jar, 50g of flour and 50g of lukewarm water. Mix thoroughly (you don’t want any patches of dry flour) then pop the lid on and leave on the side.
The next day you’re going to feed it again. We don’t want too much in the jar, so discard half of the mix, then add another 50g each of the flour and water. Mix, cover and leave. Repeat each day, taking 50g of the starter, 50g fresh flour and the same of water, until your starter starts to grow! Once it’s nice and active (you should see it double in height from your elastic band) it’s good to start baking with! n.b. This is a 1:1:1 ratio of feeding, if you are struggling with a sluggish starter later on, try a 1:3:3 ratio for instance, 20g of starter, 60g flour and 60g water. THEWESTWILTSMAGAZINE 27
