A new passion

You all know my love of sewing

And you also know that I enjoy photography and reading and you ve seen that I bake occasionally. Well before Christmas I was having a discussion about making bread and in particular sourdough with one of the lovely girls from work and her lovely husband sent me in a sour dough starter, if anyone has dabbled in sourdough baking they know that getting a good sourdough starter takes a bit to create. 

 So I was pretty thrilled.

Instantly I was hooked and So in the month leading up to Christmas I had quite a few attempts at making a loaf of sourdough,

unfortunately all of them fairly unsuccessful

Each of them tasted good, just like the real thing but unfortunately just did nt rise very well, despite all my efforts. So Gadget knowing that once I had the bread obsession happening i would nt stop until I had a success

decided to give me a helping hand and gave me

The River Cottage bread handbook for Christmas .

So I spent many hours at Soldiers Point reading about all the nitty gritty of bread making, learning about how each of the ingredients work and how they interacted with each other.

Now I am a well known Nerd and just loved the science of bread making

So as soon as I arrived home I headed into the kitchen to bake my first loaf of white bread and create a little yeast miracle

Measuring and mixing

Kneading, the right way, not the bodgy half hearted way I was before

using my new board a gift from a lovely friend for christmas

( and yep I was kneading in my pj s)

And wow did this loaf rise, fabulous little yeast cells . . . . . . See that sourdough yeast cells . . . That's how you rise

My first loaf all warm and crunchy, it was awfully difficult not cutting it while it was hot . . . But my River Cottage Guide said I should nt

The finished loaf, which not only looked the part but tasted great as well . . . .

I ve since had another crack at the sourdough and it rose a little better this time, but still not quite as much as it should. . . . . But I won t give up . . . .

So many bread recipes to try, so little time . . . Especially now I am back at work, 

"I hope your hands are working on a project that you love"

Ciao

Googy girl

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