Back to basics

I have had an ongoing battle with sourdough bread over the years; last autumn I tried again and one more failure… so I’m girding up my baking loins and I’m going to have another go. This will be my guiding star:

http://gingerandbread.com/2014/09/30/going-a-little-wild-sourdough-starter-using-wild-yeast/comment-page-1/#comment-6310

I’m not bad at making ordinary bread, although I haven’t done so for a while, and I’m quite good at making bread using barley flour which is really delicious, soft and tasty and fine, a very nice bread indeed. My attempts at making rye bread, not even sourdough but just ordinary ryebread, have not been very successful except they do always taste nice – it might break your jaws eating them, but they do taste good.

When the children were small I used to make bread several times a week, totally by hand, and I really got into the swing of it. However when the children were older and I went back to work I  didn’t really have the time – yes, I know everyone says bread making doesn’t actually take that long, but the job I had involved working very long days. I was a teacher and left home at 7:30, and often didn’t get home till well after six, plus all the homework I had to   do – I’m sure teachers spend longer on homework than the kids do! we were a very small unit and we all had several jobs, so I was head of English, Citizenship, Special Needs, and joint head of History, I  was also exams officer (gaaaaaah, what a dreadful job, and I was totally unsuitable for it) plus I organized and edited the school magazine plus a load of other stuff… so I really , honestly didn’t have time for bread making!

The solution to wanting home-made bread was a bread machine which my husband organised. It was very good (not quite as good as home-made by hand!!) and for several years we woke each morning to the smell of newly baked bread.

Now we no longer work I think it is time to try the bread-making again and I am going to go for rye because it agrees with me better than wheat… and I’m going for sourdough because I love it!! I’ll let you know how I get on!!