Sour Dough

Sour Dough is a food that combines my love for food from a particular place, microbiology and baking.  What can be more local than using the natural yeasts and lactic acid bacteria in my kitchen to flavour and leven bread (even if it does take a week to make a bruschetta!). I used Richard Bertinet's sourdough recipe from his book Crust.  The process requires mixing flour, water and honey to make a starter culture which is fed and develops over the week to a slowly fermenting mix.  The flour and honey in my sourdough were both produced in Norfolk, anchoring the bread in this place.  My starter produced a good flavoured bread and I've dried the starter so hopefully it'll stay viable for a while!

The final bread was toasted, drizzled with olive oil, rubbed with garlic and topped with Vittoria vine tomatoes and chopped basil which had been sprinkled with a little salt and pepper and left to stand for 10 minutes.

Initial Starter

Beginning of Bread Dough

Risen Ferment

Proving

Finished Bread

Best Bruschetta