Sourdough

For the past few years, I've been baking frequently - almost exclusively following Jim Lahey's no-knead bread methods to make bread and pizza, etc.  My results have been quite good and it's been very satisfying to bake good bread. In June of this year, I decided I was ready for the committment of sourdough. I created a sourdough starter following Nancy Silverton's method as described in her "Breads from the La Brea Bakery" book.

My starter, day 3.

Silverton's method worked great. And now I have a real, living sourdough starter on my kitchen counter. Maintaining a sourdough starter is daily activity. I think about my starter every day. I consider how it is progressing, how it looks, how it smells, it's viscosity, airyness, etc.  It requires daily attention. It is literally a new mouth to feed. And it has opened the doors to a wealth of new baking possibilities. 

I'm going to start to write about what I'm up to in the world of bread. My successes, but also my failures. Very much about that. 

My very first "country white" sourdough. 

(this was a success!)