Leavened Loaves

I couldn't find a decent scone recipe for sourdough discard, so I decided to experiment with making one myself! I basically used an easy scone recipe and replaced some of the milk part with the discard. Ingredients: 3 Cups of Self-raising flour 100g cold salted butter, diced 1 cup sourdough discard 3/4 cup milk Method: Preheat oven to 180°C Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add the starter and the milk and mix until it starts to turn into a dough. Add more milk if needed. Turn the dough out on the a floured bench and knead until it just comes together. Roll out to about an inch thick and cut out about 12 individual pieces Place on a lined baking tray and brush the tops with extra milk.  Bake for about 20mins.

For those of you asking for my gluten free sourdough focaccia recipe, here it is: Ingredients for the dough: 400g of gluten free flour (I used Ardor plain flour ) 280g water 30g extra virgin olive oil 8g salt 60g gluten free starter* Method :  8pm: Mixed all ingredients together in a bowl then I took it out and kneeded it on the bench until I got a nice smooth ball. Popped the dough back into the same bowl then coated in more olive oil. Covered the bowl then left it to rest until the next morning. 7:30am next day: The dough had at least doubled in size. So I placed it onto a well oiled oven proof tray lined with baking paper and with oiled hands I pulled it (very gently) into shape while also pressing my fingers into it to get the nice dimples. I then covered it with a little more olive oil.  I wasn't ready to bake it yet so I covered it and put it into the fridge for a few hours.  About lunch time I took it out of the fridge for an hour or so. I then sprinkle...

What a lot of people don't realise is that it is extremely difficult to kill a starter.  You can revive it from almost any state with just a few good feeds over a day or two.  In the first picture, this was the starter I created a few weeks ago in my stories. After it was about 2 weeks old, I made an olive loaf with it and once I used what I needed I put it in the back of the fridge and purposely forgot about it. That was about a month ago now. Second picture shows what it looked like when I got it out of the fridge just yesterday. It smelled alcoholic and it had a darkish liquid on the top (hooch). I mixed in the hooch and discarded all but about 25g and gave it a double feed of 50g flour and 50g water. Today I gave it another good feed and in the last picture you can see how active it is again! When you see hooch on the top, it's a sign of hunger and is in need of a feed. You can either mix it in or pour it off, discard most of the starter...

That moment you realise that you miscalculated the amount of starter you needed and you're left with almost nothing.. Don't worry, all is not lost!  I left myself with about 8g of starter in the jar and I fed it 50g water and incorporated what was left and then added 50g flour mixed and then left. Later on that night (about 10hrs later) it had risen to over double (see second pic) and then the next morning it was nice and bubbly on the top (the third pic). You can build on a starter from the tiniest amount, but it just takes a bit of time.. It's actually a method some people use called the 'scrapings method' where you always calculate exactly what you need and use all of it and whatever is clinging to the sides of the jar is what you build on next time. It can save a lot of flour.. but I feel a little more comfortable keeping my usual 50g for next time!

• A traditional sourdough starter is made up of just flour and water and left to ferment over a couple of weeks. • It's possible to create a starter within a week or 2 as long as you are consistent with the discard and feedings and use good quality flour. In saying that, temperature, flour type and environment have a big part to play too. • Using scales gives you more accurate results.  • Discarding is important as it has to do with the limited space in your jar and not wanting too much than you know what to do with and it also keeps it strong and active. • Discard in the first week should be thrown away. But after that you can keep it and use it in lots of different recipes other than bread. • The reason my starter method is such a small amount (20g) is because of my last point. I've seen a lot of other methods out there calling for lots of flour and it's just not necessary.. and wasteful too.  • It's best to feed it equal weights or more. 1:1:1 means it...

Did you know that you can dry your starter and then revive it again? It can last dried for years apparently! All you need to do is spread it very thinly on some baking paper, cover again with some more baking paper then use your hands to spread out evenly. Leave for about 24 hrs to dry at room temp then crumble it up and store in an airtight container. I like to wizz it up into a powder then store in my freezer to keep extra fresh. It's my back up incase I accidentally use up or kill my starter ;) To revive again, feed equal weights of flour and water. Leave for 24hrs then repeat until it starts to bubble and rise.

Focaccia is a nice way for beginners to ease into sourdough baking as it's pretty fool proof.. you really can't go wrong. This is my recipe for an easy focaccia in a day- Ingredients for the dough: 500g Tipo 00 flour (plain or bakers flour will do as well) 300g water (60%) 150g starter (30%) 10g extra virgin olive oil (2%) 8g salt (1.6) (Percentages are included so you can scale the recipe up or down) Method: Mix all ingredients together so there are no dry bits of flour. Rest for 1hr. Do the first set of stretch and folds, cover and rest for 1 hour. Second set of stretch and folds, cover and rest for 2 hrs or until it looks like it has increased in size by at least 50% and is slightly bubbly. Grease a tray or dish with some olive oil and turn your dough over into the tray. Push the dough out gently so it completely covers the whole tray. Let the dough prove at room temp for 2 hrs. (If you don't want to bake strai...

~ Feed your starter first thing in the morning. Discard all but 50g and feed equal weights of 50g flour and 50g water a ratio of 1:1:1. It should be ready to use in 5 to 6 hrs. Once you use what you need you'll have a little left in the jar to build on next time. ~ Ingredients for the dough:  500g of good quality white flour (preferably bakers flour*) 350g water (70% hydration) 100g active starter (20%)  8g salt (1.6%) Method for the dough: First stage- Bulk Fermentation 1pm: Add all the ingredients in together and mix until there is no dry bits and leave to rest covered for half hour.  [After you've let it rest a bit, you will start your first set of stretch and folds with the dough in the bowl still. The stretch and fold technique is when you grab one side of the dough stretch it up just enough so it doesn't break and fold it into the middle.] 1:30pm: Start by wetting your hands a little so the dough doesn't stick. Stretch and fold the dou...

So in my method for gluten free sourdough bread I used a premixed flour. Using a premixed flour takes a lot of the guess work out of gf baking. The flour I used is Ardor plain flour -  ardorfoodco.com.au With GF dough, there is no need to stretch and fold (as there is obviously no gluten to develop) and the bulk ferment and proving stage are done in the shaping basket or bowl. In my recipe, you'll notice that I also added soaked linseed meal, I thought it was a good idea as it adds a little more texture, flavour and nutrients to the loaf. (You don't need to use linseed meal if you don't want to, you could even replace it with something else like soaked chia seeds) Ingredients: 500g Ardor plain flour 250g water 200g GF starter* 5-10g extra virgin olive oil 8g salt 40g linseed meal (flaxseed) soaked in 100g warm water For the starter: Start by feeding your gf starter. I had about 100g in my jar already and I fed 100g flour and...

I promised this recipe ages ago and now that i'm happy with it I'm sharing it now.. you won't be disappointed.. it's so delicious! Even Max (my 4 year old) gives it his approval 😆 Ingredients for the dough: 500g total flour (300 white bakers flour/66g wholemeal/33g white stone ground spelt/100g rye) 350g water 100g active starter 7g salt tsp cinnamon tsp mixed spice Zest of a lemon or orange For the fruit soak: 200g mixture of dried fruit (any of your choice) 50g brandy (or wine/fruit juice/tea) Spices of your choice Warm water 7:30am: Starter: fed in the morning 50g starter/50g four/50g water. Fruit soak: In a pyrex jug I then added all the ingredients and poured the warm water over so that the fruit was completely covered. 1:30pm: I strained the fruit and kept the liquid in a separate bowl. I then mixed all the ingredients for the dough together adding the fruit soak liquid for the water part and extra water to reach 350g in total. Co...

Once you learn this, you can bake bread according to your preference and taste. You'll have the freedom of not needing to stick to a recipe.. even creating your own recipe! It sounds complicated, but it's not. This is how it works: Everything is calculated by weight in grams (this is why a scale is necessary). The flour total always equals 100%, so let's say you have 500g of flour (any type of flour) and you want a 70% hydration dough (hydration just means the liquid part, usually water). Get out your calculator and put in 500x70% = 350. So to 500g of flour you will need 350g of water. You need to do this with the starter and salt also. This is my usual calculation for a basic loaf= 500g total flour: 500x70% = 350g water 500x20% = 100g starter 500x2% = 10g salt By doing it this way you can make a smaller or a larger loaf, for example: 300g total flour: 300x70%= 210g water 300x20%= 60g starter 300x2%= 6g salt Or 800g total flour: 800x70%= 56...

You will need:  - A glass jar or plastic container with a lid - about 500ml/600ml in size - A scale - Good quality flour, make sure it's unbleached. You can make a starter with any flour really (even gluten free flour*), I use Bakers flour (found at most supermarkets) but an All Purpose flour will do. Lastly, - Patience. This is the hardest part as you might not see anything happen in the first week or two. Begin by weighing your jar and writing it down somewhere. Tare the scales then add 20g flour in the jar then add 20g water. Mix well and let sit for 24 hrs with the lid on but not tight so it can breath. Next day, add another 20g of flour and 20g water mix well  Third day do the same again.  Forth day, remove all but 20g of the mixture (this is where the weight of the jar will come in handy) then feed it equal weights again (20g flour and 20g water). Fifth day remove all but 20g again and feed it equal weights. You should see...

Hello everyone and welcome to my little sourdough blog. I hope to help my friends and family in this space, posting my recipes, tips and methods for sourdough baking. Enjoy!