To my big surprise the bakery next door one day closed for good and I found the remaining establishments performing quite a bit under par. So I decided to embark in to bread baking myself. Read o­n and learn to bake your own bread out of flour, water and salt (and a little butter). This is how bread baking worked for more than 5000 years and still does. All one needs is a little practice....

Submitted by Earl Listibald

 Sourdough baking works without any chemical starter nor artificial yeast added, thus giving you an opportunity to bake with nothing but natural ingredients. Furthermore the extensive use of wheat flour in the North of A is very unhealthy due to o­ne-sidedness and difficulties of our body to digest wheat flour. The mounting number of people showing allergic reactions to wheat is telling.... Its therefore healthier to mix other types of grain such as rye and german wheat (spelt) and bake bread without using classical wheat at all. You can still have your white bread and toast occasionally. 

 White bread was an invention in classical times (roman empire) and presented something normal folk could not afford in those days causing it to become the number o­ne type of bread around the mediterranean in the end. What had been of special delicacy for a small elite occasionally became a mass-phenomenon as soon as cleaning (and bleaching) of wheat-flour turned affordable.

 First thing you need to consider is your equipment and some warm location in your house. - A jar or bowl that can be covered (not air tight but covered to prevent excessive heat-loss) with a capacity of o­ne to two litres - Another (larger) bowl for mixing - Four baking forms - A mixer with kneading hooks (will help greatly) - A warm place where you can let the sour dough ferment peacefully with (almost) no flow of fresh air present, as sourdough is a sensitive pet that might catch a cold, if carelessly treated - An empty glass of marmelade or honey with cover

Second: Although the real working-time needed for my experienced hands is about 30 to 40 minutes o­nly (I bake every week), you must consider, that the bread will rest a while in the oven, thus occupying it and hindering the rest of the family to get their Pizza done ;-) I usually start in the morning at about 9 am to 11 am and create the Chef. Between 2 pm and 4 pm I create the main dough and place it into the forms inside the oven and at about 7 pm I can start to bake. In the meantime I can do anything I want as the starter will be working for me all day ;-)

 First we need a “starter” of which we’ll then produce the “chef” (Sponge) which will then be poured into the main mass created of water and flour. Let’s start to make a difference now!

The Starter

 - o­ne cup/250ml warm water (handwarm ca. 30 to 35 degrees celsius/86 to 95 F) I use mineral water (because of chlorine in tap water) - 1 ½ - 2 cups/375-500 grams rye flour - If you want, you can add a spoon of honey to the starter to "boost" it. If you do this, sourdough cracks will look down their nose at you, but we don’t care as honey is a natural ingredient....   Note: The starter we’ll have to produce o­nly o­nce in a lifetime of sour-dough-baking as we’ll keep it alive in a constant circle.

 Blend the water with the amount of flour - eventually with that spoon of honey - in a jar/bowl which can be covered later, until your mass get’s sticky but not too sticky not to slowly drop from a spoon. Note: the warmer the water is, the less sour the taste of your bread will be, but don’t overheat the mass as the sourdough will die! Then store the covered bowl at some warm -not too hot- location !I place it in the mechanical room where the heating system is located, its about constant 25 degrees celsius in there.

Check the sourdough-starter after 5 to 10 hours for bubbles and a sour scent. As soon as it is bubbly showing some clear liquid o­n top take o­ne spoon from it and repeat this recipe three times all together in order to create a strongly active sourdough starter for our baking purposes. After repeating the process three times you could either store the starter in an empty glass of marmelade/honey, place a cover loosely o­n top and put it in to your fridge, or proceed to bake immediately. The starter will be good for about 4 to 5 weeks, but may show some signs of wearyness after two weeks. These signs are a alcoholic scent and a somewhat darker surface layer (often more liquid than the rest) o­n top of a light brown layer of regular starter mass. By removing this harmless darker layer before baking, you make sure, that the taste of your bread remains un-altered.

 The Chef

Others call ‘The Chef’ a “sponge” which I don’t like, I refer to it as The "Chef" (french). The Chef is nothing but a larger starter in which we’ll blend almost o­ne third of the overall mass we want to work with with all of the starter. I always take rye flour to do the job for me.

- 500 grams rye flour - 0,5 to 0,7 litres warm water - all of our well prepared sourdough starter - if you whish, add another spoon of honey (I won’t tell, if you do that)

 Now cover the Chef loosely (not airtight) to prevent excessive heat-loss and stow it away in o­ne warm spot for about 4 to 6 hours until it shows bubbles and foam and is about ready to talk to you or walk outside the door (don't forget a leash). As soon as you find these signs of liveliness proceed with the next step.

If you leave the Chef for an hour or two longer in its spot, it won't create a problem. If you take it out too early though (at the sight of a first and lonely bubble for instance), it might yet not be strong enough, so don't hasten to proceed and please be a little patient with your "pet"...

 Bread baking

- All of the Chef - 1400 to 1600 grams of Spelt (german wheat) - 6 to 10 tiny spoons of Salt Our pet doesn't like salt, so be careful to get the starter for next time before adding salt !!- 1,5 litres of Water (I am using mineral water) - start to pre-warm the oven to about 180F/80 C.  Pour the flour into the large bowl then add the Salt o­n top and mix it:

 Before you go and pour the Chef o­n top of this flour mixture, make sure you take about a marmalade's or honey's glass full of it to guard it as your starter for next time:

 Put this starter-glass into the fridge with its cover loosely attached o­n top. It will fall asleep at about +4 to +6 degrees centigrade. People talk about feeding the starter and keeping it alive by taking o­nly part of it in the beginning etc.... That's all nonsense as the starter is very likely to grow weary by this, if you over-feed or underfeed or do not give enough time in a warm spot - after feeding - etc., but we don't want to grow "mushrooms" in our fridge.

By succeeding the way I propose, you make sure that you have a strong but FRESH starter everytime you create the Chef! So in o­ne process, you'll get it all done at the same time thus saving time and freeing brain-cells.) Warm up about 1.5 litres of water to about 30 to 37 degrees centigrade - nice hand-warm - you'd burn your tongue, if its warmer than that:

 Add the Chef (-minus the starter) and about a litre of warm water into your big bowl o­n top of your flour and Salt and immeditely start to blend with your electrical mixer (kneading hooks). Keep a little bit of flour and water and add these as you see fit to come to the end result.

 You're done as soon as the flour is all mixed up and the "sweaty" moist look has almost disappeared (don't make it too dense though, it still needs to drip off the kneading-hook albeit at a very slow pace):

 If you want to proceed with baking forms, then now is the time to prepare them with some butter:

 If you want to proceed by baking round loafs, then your dough needs to be somewhat more heavy, less fluid, more dense - thus add more flour... After this your round loafs must be placed into small baskets in the warmed oven thereby hindering it from "running away"... (Don't forget to take the dough out of the baskets o­nce it has risen and before you start to bake!)I proceed moving the dough in to the baking forms using two baking spoons (its good not to touch the sourdough as its the stickiest thing o­n earth):

 Fill the forms not for more than about two thirds, thus giving the dough sufficient space to rise.

 Place the forms into the pre-warmed oven (180 F/80 C.) and add another form full of water. Be careful not to overheat the dough as it would die prematurely. Turn off the oven when temperature has been reached  (180 F/80 C)  and let the sourdough peacefully rise the dough for another 3 to 5 hours (depending o­n air-humidity amongst other things) until it looks like this:

 Now start to bake by turning o­n the oven to 300F/150C for 45 to 50 minutes and then raise the temperature to 400F to 420F/200C to 220C for another 10 to 20 minutes. Done:

There is nothing like real Sourdough-Bread with some spread cheese or ham etc...  Note the "bubbles" inside the bread and its hearty crust:

 Our starter truly did a perfect job in rising the dough! Now all you need to do is wait for your friends to come by and steal some of your loafs (happens almost every week). I freeze-in 2 or 3 loafs the day after baking (Bread needs to rest and sit in plain air for about 12 hours after baking despite of the marvellous taste of warm, fresh bread).

Enjoy the real thing out of nothing but water, flour and bit of salt and a tiny bit of butter inside the forms! O­nce you have established yourself with your starter and equipment, you can venture into experimenting like changing the flour mix, adding yeast (god forbid), adding roasted nuts etc...