Cheat's Sourdough Bread

[Rosendula]

A lot of people like the idea of making sourdough bread but don't know where to start. Well, if you want to do it properly, and learn a lot along the way, there's a good thread here. But if you're more like me and are either too lazy or too impatient, you can always do the Cheat's version, like this:

Get some quick dried yeast. No really, get some.
Late one evening, put a big spoonful of yeast in a bowl with a teaspoon of sugar and some wholemeal flour and mix with enough water to make it into a consistency similar to emulsion paint. I make roughly 500 mls of this mixture, but there's no need to measure it out, remember we're cheating here. Leave it for 24 hours. It should have gone all frothy.

Put half of it in a big bowl. We'll come back to that.

To the half that's left, add some more wholemeal flour and water to bring it back up to the same quantity, and again to the emulsion paint consistency. This is now your 'sourdough'. I keep mine in the fridge and only use it about once a week, but if you're going to keep it at room temperature or not use it for longer, it might be a good idea to feed it now and again by throwing half of it away and topping the remainder up with flour and water. Now you can forget about that for a while.

To make the bread, you now should have half of the original mixture in a big bowl, in an evening. Add a load of water*, a bit of sugar*, and a load of flour* and make it back up to that same emulsion paint consistency. Cover, and go to bed.

In the morning, after your first cuppa, give the mixture in the bowl a good stir (it might have gone a bit runny and should have bubbles in it), add some salt, add more flour and knead it. Shape it, or put it in tins or whatever (I use casserole bowls, and I use the lids when cooking because I like a soft crust). When it's risen, bake it in a hot oven, gas 5/450F/230C for 20 mins, then reduce to about gas 5/375F/190C until it's done (about another 20 mins).

Done.

*obviously, how much you use depends upon how much you want to make. I have been using about 27-28fl.oz. water, a teaspoon of sugar (which I don't think you need at all really, it's just a habit with me), and whatever flour I need. This gives me 3 loaves in my set of stacking casserole bowls which are all different sizes.

[grahamhobbs]

Baking any loaf in a casserole can be a great idea, because it traps the moisture in, improving the rise and crust, similar to squirting steam into an oven when you put the dough in - but much more efficient. If you take the lid off around the time when you turn the oven down, for those that prefer it that way you should get a really good crisp crust.
The method you describe is essentially making bread with a 'poolish' (a wet sponge) but retaining a portion of the poolish for the next batch each time. Initally it won't have that slightly sour taste of real sourdough but as time goes on it may well pick up some flavour from natural yeasts in the air. I wouldn't use sugar, it only speeds something up when really to create great tasting bread you need to slow things down - the reason for the poolish method in the first place.

Great bread makes my mouth water. I haven't been baking much recently, the summer was hot, then the council ripped out our kitchen and spent ages replacing it and by then I'd found a brilliant bakery that make the most sublime sourdoughs, which I can buy at wholesale prices, unbelievable. But maybe Rosendula you have given me the push to get back into it.