How to make sourdough bread
This is a very simple and old fashioned way of making bread. It's how the old time pioneers, trappers and prospectors used to make their bread or 'bannock', simple flat breads.
You'll need your sourdough starter. See the 'how to' on making a starter. Don't forget to feed your starter afterwards with some more flour and water to keep him going.
The recipe
Pour about one cup of your sourdough starter into a non-metallic bowl.
Add two cups of plain flour. We use a mix of wholemeal and white flour. But any plain flour will do.
Add a pinch of salt (and some sugar) if you want.
Add a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. This reacts with the natural acids produced by your sourdough starter and makes the bread rise. Usually a teaspoon does the trick but it does depend on how much sourdough starter you've got and how 'active' he is. After a while you can gauge the right amount with a bit of trial and error.
Add whatever flavours take your fancy. We use a selection of: cranberries, raisins, caraway, prunes, sesame seeds, dried onion, poppy seeds or hajiki (dried Japanese seaweed) for variety.
Add water and mix to make a fairly wet dough, where you might have to flour your hands to stop it sticking to them. Put it on the stove to cook.
The beauty of this type of bread is that you don't have to knead it, let it rise, knock it back or any of the other bread making palaver. It's simple to make and tastes delicious.
Cooking the bread
There are lots of different ways to cook bread on a woodstove. We cook ours in a cast iron pot with a lid, a Dutch oven. We preheat the pot so it's smoking hot when we put the dough in, then put it on a colder part of the stove to cook. We keep the lid cracked. If you leave the lid on, the bread comes out soggy.
If we remember, we spin the pot around a couple of times during cooking to help it cook evenly. To make sure it's cooked all the way through we turn the loaf over and cook it on both sides. This does mean that you get a loaf with a flat top and bottom rather than the usual curved, risen top.
The temperature of our woodstove varies a lot. The colder it is outside the hotter we have it. So it takes some trial and error not to burn your bread or find there's a layer of uncooked dough in the middle. If we think our stove is getting too hot for the bread, we put a metal ring from a preserving jar under the pot which lifts it away from the heat a little . If it's too cold, we open the damper or put more wood in. It normally takes 30-60 minutes to cook depending on the size of the dough and the temperature of the woodstove.
We still don't always get it right. But when it works (and it normally does) the satisfaction of making your own bread with your own sourdough starter, cooked on wood you've cut and split yourself takes some beating.
You'll need your sourdough starter. See the 'how to' on making a starter. Don't forget to feed your starter afterwards with some more flour and water to keep him going.
The recipe
Pour about one cup of your sourdough starter into a non-metallic bowl.
Add two cups of plain flour. We use a mix of wholemeal and white flour. But any plain flour will do.
Add a pinch of salt (and some sugar) if you want.
Add a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. This reacts with the natural acids produced by your sourdough starter and makes the bread rise. Usually a teaspoon does the trick but it does depend on how much sourdough starter you've got and how 'active' he is. After a while you can gauge the right amount with a bit of trial and error.
Add whatever flavours take your fancy. We use a selection of: cranberries, raisins, caraway, prunes, sesame seeds, dried onion, poppy seeds or hajiki (dried Japanese seaweed) for variety.
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| Dried fruit added to the mix |
The beauty of this type of bread is that you don't have to knead it, let it rise, knock it back or any of the other bread making palaver. It's simple to make and tastes delicious.
Cooking the bread
There are lots of different ways to cook bread on a woodstove. We cook ours in a cast iron pot with a lid, a Dutch oven. We preheat the pot so it's smoking hot when we put the dough in, then put it on a colder part of the stove to cook. We keep the lid cracked. If you leave the lid on, the bread comes out soggy.
 |
| Our Dutch oven on the woodstove |
The temperature of our woodstove varies a lot. The colder it is outside the hotter we have it. So it takes some trial and error not to burn your bread or find there's a layer of uncooked dough in the middle. If we think our stove is getting too hot for the bread, we put a metal ring from a preserving jar under the pot which lifts it away from the heat a little . If it's too cold, we open the damper or put more wood in. It normally takes 30-60 minutes to cook depending on the size of the dough and the temperature of the woodstove.
We still don't always get it right. But when it works (and it normally does) the satisfaction of making your own bread with your own sourdough starter, cooked on wood you've cut and split yourself takes some beating.
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