Sourdough – The Green Tau

Counting on … day 37

21st February 2025

Sourdough starter recipes often tell you to discard a portion of the starter on a regular basis prior to feeding – otherwise you might end up with a huge amount of starter!! However you don’t need to throw that excess away. You can use it to make crumpets (mix four generous tablespoonfuls with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and divide the mixture between 4 greased crumpet rings, set in a frying pan. Cook and flip and cook the reverse).

Or you can use it to make soda breads – mix with extra flour and a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to make a stiffish dough which can then be baked in the oven or in a frying pan. You can play around using different flours including cornmeal, bean flours etc as well as adding different flavours – herbs, paprika, seeds and nuts, olives, chopped fruit etc.

Basically your sourdough starter is a super raising agent!

Counting on … day 36

20th February 2025

Making bread with a sourdough starter is a slower but less time pressured process – the dough is happy to sit in a warm place just doing what a good dough does.

Some recipes use a ‘levain’ which is small batch of flour mixed with the started the night before, creating a starter dough for the next day’s bread making. I find this particular useful in colder months when yeasts are generally slower to grow.

Counting on … day 35

19th February 2025

Sourdough bread is made with yeast that comes in the form of a sourdough starter. It grows more slowly meaning that whilst the bread dough takes longer to rise, it develops a richer flavour.

You can make your own sourdough starter – although it does take a few days and bit of perseverance. Once your starter is established it can continue to provide you with the means for making bread for months and years to come!

The Doves Farm method is perhaps more straight forward, Whilst the Sourdough recipe is more precise. (I have always used tap water with no ill effect).

https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/recipes/sourdough-starter

How To Make A Sourdough Starter

How To Feed, Maintain and Store Your Sourdough Starter

Counting on … day 1.136

31st July 2023

To keep sourdough starters healthy they need regularly depleting and refreshing – often more frequently than the demand for more bread. The sourdough starter can be used for things other than bread – such as crumpets.. It can also be used to provide the acidic element for soda bread or soda scones.

Soda farls made with sour dough starter

Heat a heavy frying pan.

Mix 200g of plain flour with a two generous tablespoons of sourdough starter.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and some grated nutmeg.

Stir in a handful of raisins.

Mix with enough oat milk to a soft dough.

Brush the frying pan with oil. Scope the dough out and into pan and Pat it with the back of a spoon to a roundish even shape – about 2cm deep.

Once the bottom is cooked and the edges are beginning to form, slide the soda bread onto a plate. Invert the pan on top, flip over so that the uncooked side of the soda bread is now face down in the pan.
Cook the second side.

You can vary the flavour by using dried cranberries, dried chopped apricots, diced apple etc instead of the raisins. And you can use cinnamon or cardamom instead of nutmeg.

Counting on … day 369

4th November 2022

Once a sourdough starter is up and running and ready to use, the fun starts. To keep it active it needs used and fed every couple of days (or if this isn’t practical, it can be put in the fridge to hibernate). I use one of our starters twice a week for bread making, and in between I use the starter to make crumpets.

Crumpet Recipe

Preheat a flat based frying pan in which place 4 crumpet rings (often sold for cooking fried eggs). Lightly oil the pan and the rings.

Take 200g of starter and mix well with a small teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Feed the starter with 100g each flour and water.

Place spoonfuls of the mixture into the rings. Leave to cook.

Once bubbles have formed and the surface has developed a crust, flip them over and cook on the other side.

Counting on ….day 368

3rd November 2022

Sour dough starters use natural yeasts in the atmosphere to be active. With the starter you can make bread, crumpets and soda breads etc. They are a reminder of how simple and grounded are foods can be.