Sourdough

I dug my sourdough starter out of the deepest recesses of the fridge the other day and tried to revive it. It has been there for at least 4 months, which is a tad on the long side. Hay has been buying bread from our local Hobbs House shop of late, so I haven't needed to flash up the starter. Hobbs House is a local, Chipping Sodbury firm and does some nice artisan breads.

It was still alive, but only just, so I thought I'd add to the cultures in there - I picked a couple of apples from one of our apple trees, which will be seething with wild yeasts, and left them in the starter. It kicked into action within a few hours.

I'm going to freeze it next time - apparently you can, a bit like kefir granules, but there is a time limit.

I've ordered a couple of Pullman leaf tins, which make perfectly square-ended loaves eminently suited to sandwiches. 

Having a lid, the dough fills the entire void and comes out with a nice shape. Ordinary loaf tins are too narrow and the rising dough forms a sheaf shape at the top. Just turning the dough out from a banneton leaves the risk of a collapsed loaf if the mix is too moist of the dough over-prooved.