Sourdough bread Herman.

Elsie have me a Herman 2 weeks ago and I kept it alive but I didn't have time to cook it. I was a bit scared of using starter, rather than a nice teaspoon of yeast. I'm more of a bread baker than a cake baker so I started with that. The recipe I found, though, requires quite a time commitment. That seems to be the secret of sourdough: normal bread lets the yeast feed for about 90 min but sourdough takes all day, let alone the cup of starter which was2 weeks old!

After I got back from the Newsagency, and D and I both went to Coles so I bought flour, I put washing on and stuff and then it was midnight, which was perfect cos my recipe said 8 hours is the longest time for the first stage. A cup of starter and 1.5 cups warm water and 3 cups of flour. Stir it, go to bed. Hope it's warm enough to grow. That's my bowl of Herman starter on the left.

8 hours later, wake up, and it worked! The yeast fairies visited. Then while my porridge was cooking I added salt and flour and kneaded it then put it back in the bowl for 2 hours. Seriously, this is easy. Slow, but easy. I will probably have bread for lunch. Eventually.

I had no use for two loaves so I decided to put one lump of dough in the fridge and try baking it later. That works for the no-knead bread so it's worth a shot.

So you need starter, and 6 to 12 hours, and flour and water and salt. The only cost is time. The dough was excellent to work with, not as sticky as it looks. The result of this attempt was just slightly heavier and stronger tasting bread than I normally make. Not like the shop stuff which has big bubbles in it and a really chewy crust. Maybe a warmer night would have given it a better start or something. I don't think the results warrant the extra hours, personally. Instant yeast is enough for me. But I'll have another play around with starter and try for better results.