Vin d'orange is a classic Provencal aperitif that blends wine with bitter Seville oranges. Here's how you can make it yourself:
Ingredients:
Instructions:
1.5kg Blackberries ( I tend to freeze mine and make the wine when I think I have the full amount)
1.2kg Sugar
1 tsp Pectin Enzyme
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient
5g Sachet Red Wine Yeast
Crush the berries gently in the bottom of a fermenting bucket with a potato masher, add the sugar the pour on 4.5 litres of boiling water. Allow to cool until just warm, then add the pectin enzyme. once cooled, check the specific gravity and adjust if necessary to 1095. Cover and leave for 24 hours.
Stir in the yeast nutrient, aerate, then pitch the yeast. Leave to ferment for a week, stirring everyday except the last, then siphon or strain into a demi-john and fit an air lock.
Rack off into a second demi-john when fermentation apears to have ceased. Bottle once the wine is clear. wait a year before drinking.
]]>Pollination is a happy relationship for plants and bees. A plant, when in flower, produces nectar (basically sugar filled water) to feed to the bees . This nectar is generally held deep inside the flower causing the Bees to rummage deep and while doing so the flower spreads pollen all over the bees. Some of this is stored in the bees pollen baskets on it back legs that the bees use for a protein boost in the hive, however, the pollen on the back of the bees gets carried from flower to flower and at each one it rubs off onto a new flower and this causes the flower to be pollinated and ultimately produce the fruits, nuts and seeds we all love. It’s a brilliantly fantastic relationship that ultimately produce all food for a most of the mammals on earth (the carnivores need a well fed herbivore)
For some years now At The End of the Avenue, we have wondered what plants our bees may be feeding on as they live on the rural urban fringe. In 2021 we decided to answer that question and had the honey they produced sampled for pollen to see where they had been. It was clear that agricultural crops were the predominate feed source around the hive. There was very little in the way of native wildflowers. This caused us to pause to think. Agricultural crops create a famine and feast scenario for bees. At certain points of the year the supply of nectar is in no short supply as fields of crops flower, such as the endless fields of Rapeseed that is currently everywhere. However, once the crop stops flowering, these miles of flowerless fields effectively become a foodless dessert for the bees and they have to find alternative sources of nectar. This is often known as the June Gap when spring flowers pass and the later flowering species have not flowered yet. It is also well know that urban bees have a more constant food supply as we attempt to keep colour in our gardens all year round. So we attempted to plant as many native flowers in our garden to see if we could help them through June and keep the food supply high. Last years sample (2022) shows that our small little plot made very little difference to the total of non-agricultural forage, however, if we could all collectively start to plant more native species in our garden, or leave wild patches of flowers, perhaps this could change. So we are encouraging everyone to plant for pollinators and make a small contribution to a larger effort to help the bees in June.
]]>Of course, making wine requires time to make and mature so we have no idea how it will taste but we will make sure to blog our findings at tasting time. If you can't wait for us to let you know if its worth making, the recipe is below so you can join us in finding out if it is worth the effort.
Ingredients
1 kg Nettle Tops
1kg 800g White Sugar
15g Ginger Root
4.5 Litres of Water
2 Lemons
Sachet White Wine Yeast
Method
Wash and drain the nettle tops before adding them to a large pan along with the water, sliced ginger and lemon peel (no pith) and simmer for 50 minutes, replacing any water boiled away. Once done, strain and pour the hot liquid into a clean and sterilised brewing bucket, add the sugar and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add more water to bring it up to 4.5 litres, and leave the liquid to cool down to room temperature. Once cool add the yeast and stir until combined.
Place the lid on the bucket and put in a warm place for four days.
After 4 days syphon the liquid into a demijohn leaving the spent yeast int he bottom of the bucket and fit an airlock to the demijohn. Leave to stand for two months and then move the liquid into another demijohn to encourage clearing, rack off after 3-4 months and leave to mature for a year.
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Makes 4.5 litres - which is around 8 swing bottles.
Ingredients
1kg Nettle Tops
50g Cream of Tartar
1 tsp Dried Carragheen (I didn't have any in so I used 8 sheets of gelatine)
450g White Sugar
Juice of two Lemons
11g Sachet ale Yeast
Method
Bring 5 litres water to the boil in a large pan, add the nettle tops, cream of tartar and the Carragheen (or gelatine) and boil for about 15 minutes, stirring from time to time. Strain the liquor through a colander or sieve into a fermenting bucket. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Leave to cool to room temperature.
Add the lemon juice and the yeast. Cover and leave to ferment for three days. Carefully siphon into strong sterilised swing-top bottles, making sure you do not disturb the sediment that will have accumulated at the bottom of the bucket.
The beer will continue to ferment in the bottle, gradually building up a light fizzy in the beer, and it is ready to drink in a week, although if you leave it longer it will be better. This beer is usually a little cloudy which is perfectly normal.
]]>We use a recipe that is so simple we use it multiple times a year when we have a good yield of rhubarb.
Ingredients
1.5kg rhubarb
1.3kg sugar
250ml white grape juice concentrate
1 sachet general purpose white wine yeast
Wash the rhubarb stalks and chop them finely into 3-5 mm (the thinner the better) lengths. Place in a sterlised food graded bucket, I use a fermenting bucket, and stir in the sugar. Cover with a lid or clean tea towel and leave for three days, stirring once a day, to create a syrup.
Strain the syrup that has formed into a fresh fermenting bucket. Return the rhubarb pieces back into the original bucket, stir in 2 litres of cold (previously boiled) water and continue to stir to wash the rhubarb pieces and to dissolve any remaining sugar. Leave this mix to stand for an hour and then strain again into the 2nd bucket. Repeat the washing/straining process with another 1.5 litres of cold (previously boiled) water.
Once the washing is complete, add the grape juice concentrate and make it up the total liquid volume to 5 litres with more cold (previously boiled) water. If you have a hygrometer, check the specific gravity and adjust if necessary so that the specific gravity reads 1095, if you don't have a hygrometer then just hope for the best. Add the wine yeast and give everything a good mix making the mixture as bubbly as you can.
Once mixing is complete, cover the vessel with a lid or clean tea towel and leave to ferment for a week, stirring everyday but not the last. Siphon into a clean demijohn and add an air lock.
Once fermentation appears to have ceased (usually after 1-2 months ) 'rack off' into a second demijohn.
When wine is clear siphon into clean bottles and seal with a cork or screw top lid.
We usually wait till the rhubarb is back in season to sample the bottle, the longer you can leave it the better and you will be rewarded for your patience.
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The returned jars will be clean, safety checked and reused for our next set of jar candles. This is just another step to help reduce our carbon footprint and stops the jar from going to waste. If the jars are damaged and can't be reused we will make sure they are recycled responsibly.
]]>While our products do not contain plastic, we have been working very hard to ensure that our packaging and wrapping is also plastic free. It is important to us that our products are not only great to use, but also, that once they are gone there is nothing left behind to cause lasting damage to the environment.
We are part of Plastic Free Cheshire / Eco Communities who are one of over 800 Plastic Free Communities in the UK. Plastic Free Communities is a campaign set up by the national charity, Surfers Against Sewage, to empower people to take action against plastic pollution in their own neighbourhood. We recently won their Plastic Free Champion award and we're very proud of ourselves; it was even more satisfying to learn that we are the first business in Neston to have this award.
If you'd like to start your start your plastic free journey here are some simple swaps you can make to help reduce your plastic consumption in your home.
1. Swap liquid soap in single use plastic containers for bar soap. Our range of Botanical Soaps can help you eliminate purchasing single use plastic and we have a great range to choose from, a few of which are:
Kombucha Soap is a natural exfoliator bar which is less hash on your skin than soaps and butters that use sea salt or poppy seeds, this leaving your skin super soft and ready for summer, eliminating the single plastic exfoliator wash.
Honey Soap our honey soap made using the honey from our own hives is full of antibacterial benefits its a perfect everyday soap locking in moisture when you are constantly washing your hands, this is a great for hand washing.
Nettle and Citrus the perfect travelling soap, refreshing and keeps those bug bites at bay. Ideal soap bar for campers and walkers taking up minimal space in your case.
2. Swap plastic wrap for a beeswax wrap.
We’ve always tried to minimise our waste but often find it hard to pull away from the plastic wrappers that seem to encase every item of food we buy. While it is hard, we believe that every little bit helps, and the bees have once again offered a helping hand in the kitchen as it is their spare wax that we use in our plastic free beeswax wraps.
Our beeswax wraps have come in so handy for keeping things fresh without the need for plastic film wrappers. They are made from 100% cotton cloth, coated in beeswax, and make mouldable covers for bowls or stay-put wraps for bread and fruit that happily sit in the fridge or get thrown into our lunch bags and, of course, can be used many times over. Not only do they look great and provide a good talking point, they really work well and help us feel like we are doing our bit to reduce our plastic usage. Not only that, they have made great emergency gifts for friends who love them.
20x20cm - Perfect for wrapping small food items like fruit or cheese.
30x30cm - These are great for wrapping your sandwiches.
40x40 cm – These are our bread loaf wraps to keep your bread fresh for longer.
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Rhubarb is a great plant to have in the garden. It makes a brilliant statement with its large leaves and bright red stems, and it is also one of the earlist plants we grow that gives us a taste of things to come. Rather unusually, it is not the leaves, flowers, or fruit that are of use but rather the stems. These stems are most often used in a crumble, however, to break tradition, this year we've started with a Meringue pie as the chickens are already giving us an excess of eggs and we think one last pie to round of the colder months seemed fitting. If you're wondering what to do with your rhubarb, then the recipe is below. it is a really lovely dessert to start the growing season off with:
Ingredients
300g shortcrust pastry
flour, for dusting
Butter, for greasing
3 free-range eggs, separated
700g rhubarb, cut into 2cm chunks
260g caster sugar
1 lemon, juice, and zest
5 tbsp cornflour
4 tbsp water
Method
Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface and use to line the greased flan tins. Prick the base of the pastry with a fork. Line the pastry with greaseproof paper, fill it with baking beans, and bake blind for 10 minutes.
Remove the greaseproof paper and baking beans and brush the pastry with one of the egg yolks. Return the tins to the oven and bake for a further 15 minutes until golden brown.
Place the rhubarb, 7 tablespoons of the sugar, and the lemon juice and zest in a pan. Cover and cook over a low heat until the rhubarb has softened and then mash the fruit with a fork.
Mix the cornflour and water in a bowl to form a smooth paste. Stir into the rhubarb, bring to a boil, and stir until thick. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the remaining two egg yolks. Use a ladle to pour the mixture into the baked pastry cases.
Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until they form stiff peaks. Gradually add the remaining sugar, whisking between each addition.
Pipe the meringue over the fruit filling and bake for about 20 minutes or until the meringue is golden-brown.
1lb. Oranges
1 pint of water
2lbs. Sugar
1. Wash the oranges.
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It's for this reason that I say it is the start or the end of the season. It is now that you can feed the bees sugar syrup if they don’t have enough stores, or merge colonies or take a number of actions to help them start winter, and the season well. I find I tend to focus more upon the reflection of the year and reviewing the highs and lows of the last few months, telling myself next year I will be better.
April
This year seemed to be starting well. Although we had cold nights, the days in April were dry and warm and flowers were out early, giving the bees lots of early forage and this led to a very rapid colony growth. It is when the colony gets big that they start to think about swarming and this year early May saw the bees attempting to swarm.
May
A quick move around of the queen and a couple of the hive splits we waited to see if the new queens would get good weather and mate well, but alas, the weather turn wet and the new queens struggled to mate and we found ourselves down to one hive with a good queen and two struggling hives, what to do? In late May it was clear the new queen had failed and we merged one hive back together and donated some eggs to the queenless hive and it worked a treat, the new queen hatched and started laying eggs at an impressive rate, while the old queens colony continued to grow and they started to think of swarming again!
June
The old hive decide it was time to move on again and another movement of queens were in order and two hives became three. The donated eggs hive hatched a queen, who mated successfully and started laying well again and the colony grew faster than I have seen any grow before. The third hive had a trick up its sleve though! After checking for queen cells and leaving just one we left her to it, however, sneeky as ever the girls had hidden an unseen queen cell and a true swarm happen and landed in next doors garden. A quick hop over the hedge saw them retuned to the garden and now three hives became four.
July
Four hives now full of bees and equipment was running low. Any more swarming and I was going to have to start using supers for brood boxes and whatever else I could find to contain them. The third hives queen mated and started laying but something was wrong with the fourth hive. It was only when we saw a small gaggle of bees on the floor that we realised she the queen had not made it back to the hive after mating and reintroduced her by hand. Unfortunately, she was obviously not a strong bee and failed to make the cut. Back to 3 good hives and one failing one. Decision time and we decided to donate eggs again and this time the signs were looking better. However, the second hive was now ready to swarm and a final split was in order. Four hives became five and all the equipment was used, anymore swarms and we were scuppered.
August
There is always a point in the year where something changes in the hive. Bees start storing honey around the brood, the behaviour changes to a bit more defensive and when these things happen you know swarming season has come to a close and it is all about winter stores now. Three hives were looking good but the fourth and fifth hives did not look good again. We held our nerve and left it for another week and the fifth hive became queen right and she started laying well again. The fourth hive was failing so we merge the two together to boost the numbers. Four hives were looking good but such a swarm season left many of the hives low on stores. Time to feed. It is something we try to avoid but sometimes you have to take action to help the girls out and we are feeding them bags of liquid sugar in an attempt to fill the stores.
September
More feeding until the weather becomes too cold. Come on girls you can do it. Once this month is over we may switch to fondant but we hope to make sure they have enough stores before then. There is little left to do now other than two winter disease treatments and to wrap the hives up warm. Fingers crossed they make it through but rally only April will tell.
Another year over, another year to start.
]]>We do not hide the fact that we enjoy the odd jar of honey and that we do use some of the old or surplus supply of wax and honey but in the last 5 years we have never lost a hive to disease or starvation and each year we have had strong growing colonies and have had to donate our healthy strong colonies to other beekeepers as breed and expand as they should do. It is also worth saying that in the last 5 years we have taken a few jars of honey and have always left more than enough on the hive to see the bees through winter and have never needed to bulk feed our bees sugar syrups. So while we recognise that beekeeping in not the quaint hobby it used to bee, we believe that we are helping to ensure their survival and be over the moon when the wild populations are once again sustainable without our help.
]]>There is nothing quite like eating an apple fresh from the tree, even eating the core is a joy. However, no matter how hard we try, getting the kids to eat an apple whole is somewhat of a challenge, as they prefer their apples peeled, cored and cut into wedges. As you can imagine this leaves a good deal of apple left over that is not to appealing as a snack on its own, and we used to put the leftovers into the compost until we discovered how easy it is to make discard apple cider vinegar.
You can make apple cider vinegar from any apples and can of course use them fresh from the tree, however, if like us your children leave you with a good deal of clean-cut apple cores and skin you can use this too great effect. This one really is easy to do and all it takes is a bit of time, water, honey and a few bits of apple to make a delicious cider vinegar that you can use for dressing salads, cooking, soap bar ingredient, on your chips and even as an adjunct in a cheeky cocktail tipple.
Recipe:
If your using fresh apples, cut 10 medium sized apples into 3-5cm cubes (including the core) and put these into a 1.5 litre clip top jar with the rubber seal removed. Add to the jar roughly 80 grams of honey and 1 litre of filtered water at room temperature. Stir it all together to dissolve the honey and close the lid over to stop the flies getting in. Place the jar on a plate in a warm room and gently stir daily. In a couple of days, you should start to see bubbles forming in the mixture and after about two weeks the mixture should have nearly finished bubbling and some of the apples will have sunk to the bottom and the water gone cloudy. Give the liquid a smell and if it smells alcoholic the strain the liquid through a cloth lined sieve into a clean 1.5ltr mason jar (seal removed) and close the lid. Leave this out of the sun in an out of the way corner of a room for a further 1-month when you can start to taste it. If it is too your liking, then strain through a cloth lined sieve into jars and seal and store for when you need it, it is not tart enough leave it a little longer until it is to your liking.
Discard variation: If you are using discarded apple bits, start with your 1.5 litre jar filled with 1 litre of filtered water. Add your apple cores and skin to the water every day until you have about 4 apples worth of cores and skins (this only take 2 days in our house and I wouldn’t leave it like this for more than 3 days). Once you have your 4 apples worth of discarded apple bits, add the honey and stir until it is dissolved. At this point, start the count for the first 2 weeks, as above, but everyday add you apple discards until the water rises to within 3 cm’s of the rim. Once the first 2 weeks of the ferment is up, use your judgement to decide if it need a couple more days of fermenting (does it smell alcoholic, have some of the apple pieces sunk) or is it ready? If you happy, proceed as above by staining and leaving for a month before the tasting can begin.
]]>Many people think the key to making Kombucha is the Scoby, and there is some truth in that, however, far more important is having some existing Kombucha ready made before taking the next step. The Scoby (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) is a weird rubber like raft that most often floats at the top of the brewing Kombucha, gradually getting thicker with each passing day. There is little doubt that this is important but this is actually not the key to it all, the real key is in the bacteria and yeast already in the liquid from a previous Kombucha. So before you get going you need to buy your first, and potentially only, bottle of Kombucha and we would recommend a simple unflavoured one to start with. The only other outlay you may need to make is a large jar (we recommend a glass screw top Gallon jar) and some glass bottles.
Before we begin, it is important that you don’t use any metal spoons or bowls while making your Kombucha, rather use glass or ceramic as metal actually kills, or at least negatively affects, the Kombucha. So once you have your brewing vessels sorted you first need to boil about 2.5 liters of water and then leave this to completely cool. This part of the process is actually only done to get rid of some of the chemicals in tap water but is worth the bother. Once the water is cool, put the kettle on with another litre of water bringing it to the boil. Once it has boiled it is time to make tea. It is a personal choice what tea you use here and you don’t have to be precious about using loose tea, but we really like Darjeeling loose leaf tea which we brew at a ratio of 1 teaspoon per 250ml of water. So for us we add 4 teaspoons of tea (a teaspoon is about the same as 1 teabag) to a litre of boiling water and leave it for 30 minutes. Once brewed we then transfer this (straining out the leaves) to our clean gallon jar and then mix in 250g of white sugar until it is fully dissolved. Now added the cooled 2.5 litres of water into the same jar and check that the water is now at room temp or lower. If it is still a bit too hot just leave it to cool as it will come to no harm. Once you are happy that it is cool enough add your bought Kombucha (Scoby from the bottle as well) to the mix and give it a stir with a wooden spoon. The goal now is to leave the Kombucha to brew for 7-10 days but left uncovered it will attract fruit flies so simply use a bit of tight weave cloth to cover the jar and put an elastic band over the top to stop them getting in. Now find a place that is warm and out of the sun and leave you Kombucha there for 7 days but check in every day or so just to see things are moving along nicely. What you should hopefully start to see is some light brown yeast forming at the bottom and a few bubbles rising up, after a few more days a thin transparent film should begin to form on the top of the mixture which will thicken to make a pearl white Scoby. There should be no mould, no black bits or anything suspicious about this and if there is please do just start again. Once 10 days have passed lift the cloth and have a taste (a straw or small ceramic cup can be used) being careful not to damage or suck up the Scoby, if it is to your liking move on, if not let it brew a day or two more, sampling as you go along. Once you are happy, carefully lift the Scoby out into a glass bowl and add a couple of cups of the brewed Kombucha to the bowl as well and then bottle the rest. If you like some fizz add a teaspoon of sugar to each bottle and leave for 3 days somewhere warm and then refrigerate, or simple bottle and refrigerate for a still version. Now start the process again, but this time when you add the Kombucha gently add the Scoby to the surface first and then pour the Kombucha over the top. As this brews you will see the Scoby really thicken up and become far less delicate.
That’s it really, however, there are more things you can do. You can add flavours into the brewing process by adding fresh fruits, you can use different teas (Green Tea, White Tea but not fruit tea) you can even be generous and split your Scoby when it is thick enough and donate it to a friend. What ever you do let us know if it is a winner, as we would love to try it out too.
It really is that simple and much cheaper than buying it pre made from a shop. Happy, healthy drinking.
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APPLE CIDER
Makes approximately: 8 servings
INGREDIENTS
INSTRUCTIONS
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Here is a recipe for a our winter tonic:
Pick the sprays of ripe elderberries and carefully remove all the stalks (these contain cyanide, not good). Put the berries into a pan with half the volume of water then simmer and stir for twenty minutes.
Allow the mixture to cool, and then squeeze out the juice using a jelly bag or fruit press.
Measure the juice out and for every 500ml of juice add 250g of muscovado sugar, a stick of cinnamon, a few cloves and a few slices of lemon.
Simmer again for 20 minutes then strain and pure into a sterilized bottle.
Take one teaspoon neat every few hours for colds and flu or use as a cordial or hot drink with boiling water.
]]>All bread doughs have about 60% liquid to flour ingredients, so if you have 100g of flour (100%), you would need 60g of water (60%), and soda bread is the same. We’re not just showing off with our knowledge, rather giving you this info so you can adjust the adjuncts to suit what flavours you want, as long as they are fairly dry you can add them in, raisins, dried figs, dates, whatever you want, just make sure you have the right liquid to flour ratio, although with Soda Bread a little added flour late in the process makes little difference so if you dough is a bit wet just add a couple of spoonful’s of flour to firm things up. So lets get started:
For one small loaf we recommend:
Dry ingredients
250g of plain wholemeal flour (not strong flour)
5g of salt
75g Walnuts (or a mixture that you like)
25g Dried Figs
2 teaspoons of Baking Powder
Wet Ingredients
100g of honey
150mls of Water
Before you even start weighing out the ingredients put the oven on to 200oC to preheat.
Chop the walnuts into small pieces, take half of these small pieces and further bash and chop them into really small pieces, similar to the ones you get when you buy ground nuts from the supermarket. If your using the dried fruit chop these into small pieces as well, as small as you want them really. Now mix all the dry ingredients together to combine them all. Then add the wet ingredients and mix with a spoon until you have everything combined enough to begin kneading on a floured surface. The mixture should knead well enough but if it is a bit wet don’t worry about adding a bit of flour, however, the final dough should be a bit wetter than a standard dough as it helps the little rise the loaf will have.
Once you are happy everything is kneaded together, shape the dough into a round disk about 4-6cm thick. Cut a cross into the dough almost all of the way through. Put this onto a baking tray and bung it in the oven (if it is regulated to temperature) for 25 minutes. The loaf won’t rise massively but it should open up nicely to make a 4 peaked loaf. Once the loaf is cooked it should be golden brown and sound hollow when you lift it out of the oven and tap the base, if not, put it back in the oven and give it another 2 or 3 minutes more.
Once cooked leave it to cool on a wire rack. Due to the nuts and dried fruits we like ours with a strong cheese or simply topped with a slice of butter.
]]>We are lucky to have a garden with chickens for eggs, a milk-man that delivers the milk and a small vegetable plot, and from these we hope to avoid the shops and allow others who need the supplies to access them. We have been amazed that the supermarket bread shelf is empty while the flour aisle is full; surely it should be the other way round? A simple bag of flour and a few other bits and bobs and you have cakes, pies, pasta and our favourite: Bread. Have some people forgotten the simple things? If so, let’s do something about that.
What matters most to us here is that we want to make sure that we are not stripping the shelves bare in the shops, and stopping others getting what they need, as there are some, particularly the elderly, who need the convenience of the supermarket. So, we thought we would do a bit of a skills share and show some of the things we will be doing to help make it through the current situation in the hope that you would join us in our sharing.
We will start with our favourite, and Dave’s obsession for the last few years; Sourdough.
Why sourdough? Well, all you need to make a fresh loaf is flour, water, salt and a trickle of oil, and the shelves of flour and salt are still full at the minute. So let’s get started.
Now may not seem the right time to be welcoming a new member of the family into the household, but to make a sourdough you need to first make a starter, which is a living breathing guest in your home that requires food, comfortable accommodation and a bit of attention from time to time. This starter is the stuff of biblical teaching as the other name for it is leaven, and it does indeed spread through the dough to make it rise. Basically, this is fermented flour that contains wild yeast spores that will make your dough rise, in place of the usual commercial yeast that come hermetically sealed in foil wrappers. This is where the work starts but I promise this is the hardest bit and it gets much easier after the first few days! This is where your new house-guest moves in, so you are going to have to spend the next 7 days making them feel welcome at first.
For your starter you will need: A bowl (glass or ceramic but not metal), a spoon (wooden ideally), and some strong wholemeal flour (it’s healthier for the starter too).
Day 1 - Weigh out 50g of flour into the bowl, and then add 50g of water to the flour and start mixing the two together (if it is a little too stiff add little bit more water). Now, this is the bit where a bit of effort pays off, as you basically beat the thick gloop and walk around the house showing each room to your new guest. It might sound crazy, but the goal here is to trap air and as many wild yeast spores (they are in the air around us all the time) as we can and a stroll around just seems to be a bit more fun than standing still. Once you have been at this for about 10 minutes, put the bowl down in a room at a normal household temperature and cover it loosely with a plastic bag to stop it forming a skin. Now just leave it… job done until tomorrow.
Day 2 – Weigh out 30g of wholemeal flour and 30g of water and add both to the bowl of gloop. Grab your spoon and repeat day 1, but a brief 5 minutes should be enough today. Set it back in the bag in the warm room and you’re done for the day.
Day 3 – Can you see any bubbles forming? Don’t worry if you can’t, they will do soon, we promise. Now this is the bit everyone struggles with, but you need to empty some of the starter out, about half. We need to do this to get rid of some of the old flour that is now just sitting there, but also to make room for more fresh flour to keep food supplies up for the wild yeast. So, in total our starter should weigh 160g, take out 80g of starter and dispose of it (don’t block the sink) and add 40g of fresh wholemeal flour and 40g of water (50/50 mix). Give it a good mix for a couple of minutes and replace the bag and leave it again until the next day.
Days 4, 5, 6 & 7 – Copy day 3 but watch out for the bubbles and make a note of the changing smell. You will need to get used to this smell, as it is a sure sign of when your starter is healthy and when it needs feeding and a bit of a good mixing. Hopefully by now you are starting to develop a fondness for your new guest because they are now here to stay and can last for years. Yes seriously, as many bakers would pass the starter down through the generations. We have perhaps gone too far and given our starter the name of Larry the Leaven, but it is now older than our first born so it at least deserves a name.
Job done for the starter, sort of. The idea now is you use a bit of this in every loaf you make, recording how much you have taken out, and keep topping up with 50/50 mix of flour and water to replace what you have removed. So if I take our 50g to make a loaf I simply replace this with 25g of flour and 25g of water. Now a starter won’t stand neglect for long, it is a living thing after all. We make a loaf a minimum of every other day so we are feeding Larry most days and he happily survives in the cupboard or counter top.
If you want a few days more in between loaves simply keep the starter in the fridge in a loosely sealed container. This does add a little complication as we would recommend that the night before you are to bake your next loaf you take the starter out of the fridge, discard some, and replace it with the 50/50 mix and give it a mix, then leave it to come up to temperature (which should make it really bubbly again) and use this to bake the loaf the next day, replacing the flour and water as described above.
How do I make a loaf?
So the starter is ready to go, now for the real fun. For so many of the books I’ve used there is a general ratio for flour, water, salt and oil but I am not going to get into that as I have found different flours (you can use different types) all need different mixes, so I am going to provide the recipe I use that keeps 4 people happy for a day or two and you will have to have a few experiments to get your brand working for you. I am going to make the recommendation that you should just use strong white flour for your first few attempts, as it is easier to handle, but my loaves are a 50/50 mixture of flours.
You will need:
In a large mixing bowl combine the flour and salt with a quick fold.
On a set of scales, put 2 desert spoons of starter into a separate bowl and record the weight, then add water to the same bowl to bring the total weight up to 350g. (So if my starter weighs 40g I will add 310g of water). Mix the flour and water well so it just looks like cloudy white water.
Add the water/starter mix to the flour and salt and start to mix together. If you have a mixer with a dough hook then use this for 8-10 minutes. If not, you will have to get your hands in to ensure all the water and dough is combined and then you will have to tip it out onto your oiled work surface to knead.
Make sure you oil your work surface first as this is going to get messy, but basically knead until it comes together into a smooth silky stretchy dough. Kneading is not an artform, you are basically stretching the dough as best you can and then folding it back onto itself and stretching it again. With enough kneading, what started as a sloppy mess becomes a very stretchy (you should feel tension in the dough) dough that you can shape. Shape it into a large bun shape by folding the edges into the middle, turn it over, and sort of push the sides under the bun shape. This is called a round.
Once it feels silky smooth and has some stretch in it, shape the dough into a round and put the dough into an oiled bowl (a bit of oil rubbed around the bowl is fine), put the bowl into a plastic bag (please keep reusing the bag; I actually use a shower cap) and leave it to rise at room temperature for an hour. After the first hour, it will look like it has done nothing, but take it out, shape the round again, and put it back into the bag and leave it until you are sure it has risen a bit (this can take 4 hours if the starter is working well, or 10 hours if it is a bit sluggish). Then shape it into a round.
Now sourdough takes a while to rise so it needs some support. We use proofing baskets but a 25cm (10 inch) bowl will work well. Line the bowl with some muslin cloth or a clean tea towel and cover it with flour (don’t be shy with the flour). Put the round (seem side up) into the lined and floured bowl, cover with the bag and leave until it has doubled in size (4- 12 hours).
Once doubled in size, turn your oven on to the highest temperature and let it regulate for a good 30 minutes. Heat is everything here, the more intense heat you have the more successful the rise will be. Put some baking trays into he oven, or an ovenproof pan, and let them come up to temperature also. Once everything is ready, you need to have a serrated knife and a cup of water to hand.
Carefully lift the baking tray out of the oven, shutting the oven door quickly, and put them onto a heat proof surface. Carefully tip the dough out of the bowl (support it to ‘drop’ slowly) onto the hot baking tray. Sprinkle/flick/spray some water onto the dough to keep the surface moist for rising and then diagonally cut the top to a depth of roughly 1cm with the knife by dragging it across the surface, don’t worry about being neat, speed is of the essence. Then quickly return it to the oven, throw the remain water onto the oven base (careful it will create a lot of steam) and shut the door as fast as you can.
Set the timer to 10 minutes and leave the oven at its hottest setting. After 10 minutes, turn the temperature down to 1700C and open the oven door for 3 minutes to let lots of heat out. After 3 minutes, close the oven door and set the timer for 30 minutes. Once complete, use a clean dish towel to lift the loaf out, turn it over, tap the bottom of the loaf with a knuckle and it should sound hollow. That’s it you are done, leave it on a wire rack to cool for at least an hour.
Slice it and enjoy.
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