The Daily Post asked this week for photos that evoke growth.
For me, sourdough bread is perhaps one of the purest examples of how natural growth processes can be utilised to create something sustaining and delicious.
Flour and water are combined, and left as a food offering to the yeasts and bacteria that exist all around us. Over time, and with extra food, this mixture grows sufficiently in bulk and strength that with the addition of yet more flour and water, the resultant dough can be kneaded and proved and ultimately baked.
Learning to bake sourdough bread has been one of my projects for the last couple of years. With every completed loaf, my knowledge and confidence also grows.
Ah, that’s growth alright!
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A lovely growing story. 🙂
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…and I have a shallow bowl in that exact pattern!
Good example of growth 🙂
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Ours was from Whittard, probably Hemel Hempstead. I think most of our UK crockery was bought there 🙂
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That looks really good.
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I have to say … it tastes really good too (unlike a few of my loaves which have been a bit lumpen and over-sour) 🙂
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I love sourdough bread and had no idea that’s how it got its flavor. I always assumed it was something added to the dough like vinegar or something.
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🙂
I hadn’t thought about it at all until T decided to try making some. Because we had no idea what we were doing, we ended up reading lots of articles about the chemistry of it all. Apparently the sour taste is caused by bacteria producing lactic acid. Really good bakers can control the sour taste by manipulating the starter; I just take pot luck.
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I love sourdough bread. I admire your tenacity – nurturing the process.
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Thanks Tish. I realised a while ago — after a particularly disastrous loaf — that I was absolutely not going to be beaten. I’m not sure if it’s just pig-headedness, or the fact that being able to produce food is so important to me, but I am glad I didn’t give up. The successes are outweighing the duds these days. 🙂
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Good example of growth – and then, no doubt, a good example of a disappearing trick because it looks scrummy!
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🙂 definite shifting of mass from loaf to tummy, so probably growth there unless I get out and do some gallivanting of my own 🙂
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😀
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There’s nothing as good as a home made bread.
Leslie
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I second that!
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😉
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Yum, yum! 😀 So it´s an ever-growing love-story between you and the sourdough? 😉 xxxxx
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Totally! And it’s a pretty volatile relationship 🙂 So many variables: yesterday was really hot and the dough reacted quite differently to usual. 🙂 xxxxxx
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Love sour dough bread – lovely photos of your loaf! It’s always associated up here (U.S.) with the Gold Rush to California over a hundred years ago. Has it a similar history down under?
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I love the idea of gold miners carrying a little bit of sourdough starter with them. I don’t know if it has much of a history in NZ. I guess people had to do something before commercial yeasts were available, but it’s not a known part of our cultural history.
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That’s interesting. Thank you!
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Yummy growth, Su! I grew some bread today, but it all happened in the bread machine. Still, the aroma and the finished product are as wonderful as if I’d made it by hand and I had so much else to do that it was a blessing.
janet
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Home-made bread is wonderful however it is made. 🙂 Sourdough is really time-consuming, so I’ve learned to bake two loaves at a time and freeze one. But the flip-side is that I find the process of working the dough very satisfying, and I’m learning to understand what’s happening by the feel of the dough, not just the look. Very theraputic! 🙂
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Yum! Looks so good.
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It’s turned out to be probably my best loaf yet so I’m feeling very happy (and full) 🙂
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Very Wabi Sabi! M
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🙂
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Pingback: Growth – Congestion – What's (in) the picture?
I just had to drop in and drool over your loaf. I killed my sourdough starter before Christmas. It got sadly neglected in the end-of-year busyness. I am still trying to get another one started but it keeps being too darn hot to think about baking. I miss home-baked sourdough. So I’ll just pretend I’m about to have a piece of yours, if that’s okay.
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I’ll cut you a slice specially. We’ve even got some posh butter at the moment.
I’m finding the heat here a bit challenging in terms of proving the dough. My recipe is an Aussie one, but even so, the timings are all over the place.
Hope you get a new starter sorted 🙂
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Ooh. Posh butter! Yum! Thank you 🙂 Sourdough baking is such a multi-day process, our up and down weather is just too hard. 33℃ today and tomorrow and then 22℃ the following two days. I’m having a hard enough time working out what to wear each day.
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I understand that. I’m just about ready to start wearing sarongs (at least until I have to leave the house). And we’re nowhere near 33℃!
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I never realized it was such a complicated process. I think I will stick with buying mine, at least until the weather cools down. Definitely not baking weather at the moment. But that does look yummy…
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I’d probably buy too, if I could find a reliable, affordable source locally 🙂 But on the other hand, I like a challenge, and the satisfaction of a good loaf is enormous 🙂
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We have a specialist sour dough shop in Butleigh and then the farmers market have a stall too. But it is expensive
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So it’s not just expensive here then! I can kind of understand, it is much more time-consuming than standard bread. Sad though.
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Oops I misspelt Burleigh…
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🙂
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This is such a delicious looking loaf of bread!
Your post meets the Challenge at so many levels! I have heard it said (from other Sour Dough Bread Bakers) that you belong to a special niche of bakers!
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Thank you. I think mastering sourdough (as I hope to one day) requires a huge streak of stubbornness!
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Keep at it, Su!
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🙂
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Looks yummy! Definitely growth!
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🙂 thanks
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