The Staff of Life

Arán, bread, bood, brot, pa, pane, pain call it whatever, it is the staff of life. I don’t mean the industrial muck plied with chemicals to hasten its rising time and still “fresh” days after buying. I don’t mean the stuff cut in neat slices and dressed in colourful wrapping declaring the presence of wholemeal or grains. All muck. I’m talking about bread made with five basic ingredients, flour, yeast, water, salt and time, I’m talking about real bread.

Last year as I sat in my kitchen convalescing and reading the paper on my iPad my attention was drawn to an article on real bread. It warned me about the disappearing act of bread making and the dominance of industrial bakeries and supermarkets. The prolific presence of tasteless rolls and baguettes in filling station shops. Local bakeries had disappeared, driven out of business by industrial scale baking and changing lifestyles. We now bought our bread weekly, we were sophisticated and modern. No more twice daily trips to the local shop or bakery, because in the words of John Hiatt they were gone, gone like last week’s pay check. Needing to get out of bed in the middle of the night to start baking probably didn’t help either.

So I got my eureka moment, I would bake real bread. I would be the standard by which to judge all convalescents. Don’t worry that I had never baked before, what could go wrong? Well very little actually.

After a bit of research I kitted myself out with the basics, namely

• A large mixing bowl
• Large food jar, screw top or clip top, your choice
• A measuring jug
• A weighing scales
• A banneton (proving basket)
• A polished marble/granite slab for kneading

Recipe research threw up all wonders of fresh bread, wholemeal, rye, white loafs. But the Eldorado of all was the sourdough loaf. The bread made famous by gold speculators in San Francisco and now ubiquitous in any self-respecting cafe selling mashed avocado on toast to the hipster masses.

My second eureka moment in as many days told me to make sourdough. But first I had to make my sourdough starter. Here’s what I did.

• Day one: in your jar mix 100g strong white flour with 100ml of water. Leave the jar open.
• Day two: discard half of the flour and water mix and add another 100g of flour and 100ml of water. Leave the jar open.
• Repeat the process of disposal and refreshing until you starter bubbles and smells beer like, this should take 5 to 6 days.

Don’t worry about the smell, this is what you want. This is natural bacteria and wild yeasts reacting to create an acidic base for raising bread. This is the basis of your sourdough adventures. The starter will keep indefinitely with regular feeding. Just top it up after each use. If you do not bake on a regular basis keep the starter in the fridge. The low temperatures will keep the yeast and bacteria reaction dormant. Remove from the fridge the day before you need it and refresh with flour and water.
So, starter in place, bubbling away, what next? Well I took inspiration from a book called Sourdough Bread Made Easy by John Carroll and jumped in. Here’s what John advised me to do.

Makes 1kg loaf
• Strong White Flour 530g
• Water 265ml
• Starter 265ml
• Salt (I use coarse sea salt) 1.5tsp

Combine all your ingredients in a large bowl and mix by hand until a sticky mass has formed. You can also use a mixing machine with dough hook. Transfer the mixture to you marble/granite slab for kneading. Knead for about 10 minutes. Stretching the dough in length before reshaping to a ball. Repeat this regularly during the kneading time. After 10 minutes or so the mixture will be less sticky and have a smooth almost velvet like feel.

Shape the dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave it in a warm place. Leave it until it doubles in size, depending on the temperature, the acidity of your starter etc this will take time. Give it 4-6 hours or, if baking in the evening, overnight.
When your dough has doubled in size remove it from the bowl and transfer it to your marble/granite slab. Give it a sprinkling of flour and a quick knead. This is called knocking back and is intended to remove excess air from the dough. Sufficiently knocked back and deflated, either form the dough in to a ball or a sausage shape, this will depend on the shape of the banneton that you are using. When you have formed your dough place it in the well floured banneton and cover with oiled clingfilm until again it doubles in size. This again will take a number of hours.

When you’re ready to rock n roll, preheat your oven to 180c. Tip the banneton onto a nonstick baking tray or line one with parchment paper. The dough should have flour lines from the pattern of the banneton. Make some slashes to the dough with a sharp knife. This has two affects, it prevents the bread from splitting while cooking in the oven, it also gives the bread a nice appearance when cooked.

Right then, dough ready, oven ready, you’re ready. Place the baking try in the middle of the oven, close the door and set the timer for 40 minutes. During that 40 minutes you can either clean up or have a glass of wine, I tend to default to the wine.
After 40 minutes remove the (very hot) bread from the oven. Its base should have a hollow sound when tapped. Place it on a wire rack to cool and try to resist cutting a slice to taste, not always possible. This should be the last time you buy industrial bread, enjoy.