June 2020

Bread in Sri Lanka is different. The children complained that I was making their sandwiches for their school lunches from sweet bread. That is true, white bread is sweet. Countless times I baked bread at home, delicious eaten fresh, still warm out of the oven, as the next day it’s not so good. Buns, baguettes, long loaves, round loaves, big dome loaves, we tried all kind of different shapes. Friend’s wife bakes sourdough bread at home and once he suggested to me to try making the sourdough starter at home and had a go at baking a healthy sourdough bread on my own.

I studied it on the internet for a long time, read articles and watched videos – it was quite complicated, but I said to myself, I will have a go.

It took me about 20 days to make a mature sourdough starter. I took good care of it and according to the instructions  I “fed” it daily (55gr of sourdough paste, 55gr of water and 55gr of flour) and waited to see if the starter is mature enough and I could bake.

And I baked! Well, I’ll tell you, it was a long process.

All-day slavery for two small loaves – and it did not even turn out that good. On my first try, however, it was ok, just with butter it was edible. I took it from the oven at midnight and Steve persuaded me to cut it and enjoyed it. It was tasty, but not soft, quite firm.  

I have the sourdough starter in the fridge and I feed it once a week. When I have all day to spare to bake sourdough bread again, I’ll try it a for a second time, maybe I will have a better result.

Rennie