Sour Dough Bread

So a week ago I made a start on my Sour Dough Starter and it worked beautifully.  So here are the instructions to make the bread.

In a BIG bowl put in order 4 cups of starter, 5 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon of salt and 3 cups of water.  With a wooden spoon, knead the mixture for at least 5 minutes.  It starts getting thicker as the gluten fibres come together. Its meant to look and feel like goo (consistency of gooey, wet oatmeal porridge). If this spills wipe up straight away as when it dries it sticks like superglue ... so I discovered.

Put in greased pans to rise (I used a wet ceramic cup to flop it into the pans and filled each pan to halfway), and should fill 3 pans. Raise for at least 7 hours to get a good rise. I just leave mine sitting on the oven top all day, don't worry about a warm place.  All the phytates in the bread will be removed as well after this time.

All ready to rise

Nicely risen after 8 hours

Then bake at 180 degrees for one hour and hey presto, yummy sour dough bread. The key to success of this recipe is have a reasonably wet dough which will give you soft loaves. You can add all sorts of stuff - sunflower seeds, linseeds, pumpkin seeds etc..   Enjoy!