Oh Oh, Sourdough!

Of course, I wanted to try my hand at making my own homemade sourdough bread. After some research, it was time to create the starter. Well, my first try at starter was a colossal fail, we have had an unusually cold winter, and I think my house was just too cold for it to take. I didn't give up; I spent some more time researching online and found I could purchase the "starter" in a dried form online and found a company that provided a San Francisco 100-year-old guaranteed starter! So I order it. Thank you ZourDough, for the great starter! I purchased the San Francisco Starter, followed the instructions to the letter, and this time it worked. The Sourdough arrived in a little baggy, and all I needed to do was follow the instructions.  Pretty straightforward, right.

So it took me a few weeks, but now my starter is ready to go.  I have to say, I was still very nervous about making the bread after reading all the "advice" online. Most of the websites made the process sound so complicated. Finally, I decided I just needed to find a simple recipe and try it. I have to say, after following the simple recipe and making my first two loaves, I don't know why everything written online has to make it seem like it is so difficult. Maybe I'm just lucky, but my first two loaves turned out great, other than getting a little more done on the bottom than I would have liked, and I am now ready to keep making my own sourdough bread and never buying it again! It tastes so good!

Here are some pictures of the journey as my husband calls it since you don't decide that morning you are going to make sourdough bread and have bread in the afternoon like some other kinds of bread.  In fact, he joked that it took me two months to make him a loaf of sourdough.  I didn't laugh, because honestly after the first fail, and then my hesitation because of the "complexity" that was described everywhere, it did take that long!