Rise to the occasion!
Baking sourdough bread might seem intimidating but it doesn’t have to be. With a few essential basics you’ll be baking healthy, crusty loaves of bread in no time. Only four ingredients are involved here – flour, water, yeast and salt – but through intricate chemical transformations, lumps of wet dough are turned into nourishment that has become synonymous with life itself.
I grew up in Rustenburg, a platteland town in North West. My mom always baked her own bread, and I remember how she’d prepare for the kneading, using her own starter made from grated potato. To wake up to the wonderful smell of freshly baked bread every morning is what my childhood memories are made of.
My journey with sourdough bread started nearly three years ago when I was having lunch at a restaurant and bakery in the Cape Winelands, and a jar filled with happily bubbling sourdough starter was waiting as a gift for an eager home baker. Of course, that would be me. True to my inquisitive nature, I wanted to explore and learn about this business of sourdough bread baking. “Contact the baker for further details,” read a note attached to the starter, and off I went. That is how Alice was born.
Alice, my very active wild yeast starter, demands attention every day. Wild yeast starters need to be fed
