The Beginning

I've just grown my first Sourdough starter and I want to try and bake my own Sourdough bread.

I'm not a Sourdough Bread baker, I just want to try and provide myself and my family with healthier food choices.

You can find a good video on growing your own wild yeast Sourdough Bread starter on www.riotrye.ie

I live in Wexford in Ireland, and I found it hard to get good information on growing a Sourdough Bread starter or baking Sourdough Bread in our temperate climate, so I thought I'd blog about it as I make mistakes and hopefully figure it out. Maybe I'll never get the great rise with lots of holes, but maybe I will.

I tried to bake my first Sourdough Bread loaf last week, using a recipe I found online in an Irish Independant article. I should have researched it a bit better. Turns out there was a mistake in the recipe so I ended up with Sourdough Bread loaves I could use as a doorstop! My other half tried to be nice about it, but my eldest said "I'm not saying it's disgusting, but I'm not eating it again..." Great confidence booster there!

Here's a photo of my terrible first attempt at a Sourdough Bread...

I'm going to try again this evening and I'll take some photos as I go along. It can't be any worse than that one....right?

Here's how my Sourdough Bread starter looks when I fed it. I'll keep you up to date on how it goes. Hopefully the next one will rise.