Photo Credit: Puppy, my 8 year old Bedlington Terrior, and Get Baking mascot!

Hello again!

Let’s Get Baking is my mini-journal on life in baking (with a lot more added in!). My ramblings will, I hope, inform and interest you. I will impart new recipes I have tried and tested, along with useful baking tips and techniques, suitable baking equipment…and my new life in Spain!

I will endeavour to keep you up to date with my busy and hectic lifestyle; looking after the horses, dogs and cats and producing craft items and bakes to sell at markets throughout Spain. I have never been so poor! My affluent lifestyle is over, and so, I have to make money to live and develop my new home in Spain. I also have to sue the ‘bastards’ who put me wrongly into this ‘life changing’ situation - more of this in due course.

I will show you how easy it is to bake interesting traditional bakes, and then adapt the recipe to give a modern interpretation. I make bread using a sour dough starter, and then adapt the recipe to suit my tastes. This is so easy, and there is no mystery! As with all baking, ignore the rubbish pontificated by the ‘so called’ experts, just follow my simple instructions below. I also love making candy. I can’t wait to show you how easy and inexpensive this can be.

Will I find the time to do all of this and write my articles too?

I think I will.

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Let’s get started with baking. As I have mentioned bread, we will begin there. The starter is very easy; it just takes a little time to ‘start’.

Basic Natural Yeast Starter Recipe

You will need:

• 50g / 2ozs / 1/2cup Strong Bread Flour
• Sufficient Water to make soft dough
• The same quantities of flour and water each time you refresh

Making a 'natural' yeast starter is easy. All you require is flour - the food, water - moisture, sunlight - warmth, and TIME. Give the above mixture two or three days, (or longer if cold weather). When it has risen and collapsed back down, throw away 4/5ths of the mixture. Add more flour and water to the remaining 1/5th - to replenish the food source, (the same amount as above). Go on repeating this process and before long you will have an active sample of natural yeast.

You will find that as the yeast becomes more active you need to add new flour and water more frequently. When the mixture is very 'bubbly' and quickly achieves twice its volume, it is ready to use. This needs to happen within one day for it to be ready. As long as it is kept warm, fed and given time, you will always have an 'active' natural yeast starter. Keep up this regime saving a portion of your yeast for the next baking, reactivating it as often as you want to. The 'older' your yeast starter is the better it becomes and the quicker it is to reactivate.

The best results though are achieved through using your yeast starter regularly. Commercial bakers produce the best sour dough breads simply because their natural yeast starter is used every day, not reactivated once a week as the home baker has to do. People who live in hot countries are very lucky, they have no problems activating natural yeast and getting a high rise with their sour dough breads. In Britain, to achieve the best results, we have to put the sour dough in a warm place - cold kitchens are not conducive to good sour dough bread!

So go for it and give it a try.

Do not be intimidated by the 'so called' experts.

Stay tuned for my White Sourdough Recipe:

Photo Credit

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