I can make bread!
After years of producing barely edible, moisture-stealing dough-bricks, I have — like so many others during this pandemic — learned to bake sourdough bread.
Every loaf is now turning out fluffy and golden, and sourdough bread has a world of extra flavour and texture that makes it feel so much more of a food than regular bread.
It’s not even difficult. The real trick, for me, was using a Dutch oven (basically a big pot you can put in the oven). I got a cast-iron one for fifty bucks. Something about the way it traps the heat and the moisture makes the dough rise, get that lovely colour, and not burn.
But what about the sourdough? Or even yeast, which is hard to find in stores right now.
People talk as if you have to get a batch of “starter” culture from ancient Rome, but you can actually make a starter just by leaving a flour and water exposed for a couple of days, which lets it pull in some of the yeast that’s constantly floating in the air around us. (Yeah!)
Sourdough from Scratch instructions