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[Opening jingle]
Hi and welcome to The Bread Kitchen.
Sourdough Bread has a taste all of its own and some people think it's quite difficult to make
but actually it's no more difficult than any other kind of bread.
To begin, we need a sourdough starter.
Making a sourdough starter is a bit like starting your own farm.
We're gonna grow all the yeasts that lives naturally around us.
They live on our bodies and they live in the air that we breathe.
For my sourdough starter, I'm using a cup of flour. This happens to be wholemeal flour.
A tablespoon of milk
and a couple of tablespoons of water.
Pop the flour into a bowl.
Add in the milk
and about half the water
and mix well.
What I'm after is a moist dough.
I think I'm gonna need to add in some more of the water.
Keep adding water until you get this soft dough which I'll show you in a minute.
And there we are. This dough is kind of ... firm
but quite moist.
I'm just gonna knead this for a few minutes on this surface.
I'm just trying to
make sure that it's all evenly mixed.
Once it's well kneaded,
pop it back into the bowl,
sprinkle on just a few drops of water,
cover it with cling film
and then pop it in a really warm place,
25 degrees centigraded good
for a couple of days.
Right. I'm off to get on with the rest of my life.
So... Here we are, a couple of days later.
Take off the film. It's got this kind of crust at the top.
And I'm gonna take that crust off. Hmm... Lovely.
It's all soft and mousse-y underneath and smells just lightly sweet.
I'll scoop it out
and put it into a clean bowl.
So... Now that I've got this kind of spoge,
I'm gonna add in 2 tablespoons of
warm water
and mix.
And then when it's all reasonably smooth,
I'll start adding in about a cup of flour.
Wholemeal flour.
Once it's gone all sticky, I can add in the rest of the flour
and mix it together with my hands.
This stage is known as the first refreshment of the starter.
You might find that you need to add
another teaspoon to another tablespoon of more water
just to get it all fluid.
It's not a problem.
Just knead the dough in your hands for a couple of minutes to make sure it's all nicely mixed.
We'll pop it into a clean bowl.
Cover it with cling film
and put it back in a warm place for another 1 to 2 days.
So this is after 24 hours. You can see it's all nicely aerated underneath.
It's got this darken crust.
It's got quite a sharp smell. A bit like a yoghurt-y smell, really.
I'll just take off this crust.
What I'm left with is this quite aerated kind of spoge.
And I'll just put this into a bigger bowl.
For the second refreshment,
I'll add in a half a cup of water
and mix it all into a slurry.
You're probably thinking this is a lot of work to make bread but you only have to make the starter once.
I'm gonna add in about a cup of flour.
A little bit at a time.
I had to add in just slightly a bit more than a cup of flour.
I'm just gonna knead it in my hands for a minute or two to make sure it's well mixed.
And I'll pop it in the bowl,
cover it with cling film
and put it in a warm place overnight.
For several days now, for just a few minutes each day we've been tending our yeast farm.
Good news everyone!
Today, we can make bread!
So, here's my lovely, bubbly starter that's been sitting overnight.
Smells...
Yeah, slightly sharp. I'm just gonna...
put it into this larger bowl.
So as you can see it's all gloopy and sticky. I'm gonna add in about a 150 ml of warm water
and mix.
Once I've got this nice slurry again,
I'm gonna add in 350 g of flour. This is a 50/50 mixture
of white flour and wholemeal flour.
I'll just mix it altogether.
And I almost forgot a couple of pinches of salt.
Here we go.
Looks like I'm gonna need to add in a couple more tablespoons of water.
Just keep adding water as you need to
until you get a nice... dough.
Once all the flour has been absorbed
and you've got a nice dough, pop it on a floured surface and give it a good kneading for 5 to 10 minutes.
After about 5 to 10 minutes kneading,
you should end up with a dough which is very elastic.
Pop it into a nicely oiled bowl,
cover with plastic wrap
and then put in a nice, warm place until it doubles in size.
It's been a couple of hours and my dough has doubled in size.
I'm just gonna turn it out onto this board.
Just knock it back a bit.
And here comes the clever bit. I'm gonna cut out a chunk of the dough and just
pop it into a little ramekin or other little bowl.
Then cover it with cling film.
This little piece of dough contains all the yeast you need for your next loaf.
It's like a starter.
You can keep it into the fridge for up to a week
and to work out how to use it, just rewind this video back to 3 minutes 49 seconds
and follow the steps from there.
Now... Back to the dough.
Just give the dough a gentle knead.
Just for a minute or two, no longer than that.
Still quite elastic.
Take a bowl.
Put a clean tea towel inside it.
Flour the tea towel really well.
Then put the dough, seam side up
into the bowl.
Then cover it with some oiled cling film
and pop it in a warm place for it to rise again for several hours.
After a few hours you can see that my dough has risen really well.
I'll just put this to one side. Take a baking tray
and dust it with flour.
I'll turn the dough out onto the tray.
Just give it a light dusting of flour.
Just make a couple of slits in it.
I'll pop this in the oven at 190 degrees Celsius for about 20 to 25 minutes.
After the alloted time, it's beautifully baked.
Place on a wire rack to cool completely.
Sourdough Bread.
There's no taste quite like it.
In my opinion, Sourdough Bread is not the kind of bread that you're gonna to make cucumber sandwiches.
I think it's best toasted. Spread with a little butter or margarine
and then a layer of jam or marmalade.
That way, the sourness of the bread is complimented by the sweetness of the jam.
I hope your Sourdough Bread turns out as well as mine.
Thanks for watching and join me next time in The Bread Kitchen.
[Closing jingle]