Vegan Sourdough Bread Recipe Uk

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Learn how to make a sourdough starter the easy way. You will learn all about what a sourdough starter is, what you need to make one, how to make it without endless feedings and wasteful discard, and why the whole process doesn't have to be as difficult and time consuming as you think!

Everything that you think you know about making sourdough starters and re-learn that it doesn't have to be as difficult as everyone in every cookbook and recipe on the internet makes out?

Sourdough Making Guide Recipe / Riverford

This post is long, detailed and contains lots of essential information. I recommend you read the entire thing before making a start, but when you come back to it again, feel free to jump to where you want to be via the table of contents below:

Most recipes online are just plain mind boggling with lots of complicated steps and unfamiliar terms and math ... I mean I hated math at school and I sure don't want to be calculating complicated percentages when all I want to do is make a loaf of bread.

So I am here to demystify it. This is my simple, no fuss guide to making a sourdough starter. I want to make the whole process accessible and approachable.

Seeded Multigrain Sourdough Bread

I want anyone, whether a natural baker or not, to be able to come along and learn to make a sourdough starter and a basic loaf of sourdough bread without getting confused over a million different complicated steps and without having to negotiate unfamiliar baker's terminology.

Of course there is a time and a place for the proper terminology, baker's percentages and dough hydration etc, but the average person isn't bothered with all that. They just want to come along and make an uncomplicated, easy starter, then knock out a pretty decent loaf of bread once it's ready. That's it.

So if you are that average person who just wants to learn to make a sourdough starter with no fuss and no complicated instructions then you are in the right place.

Simple Spelt Sourdough Bread • Heartbeet Kitchen

And if you don't want to be making massive jars of starter that grow and grow, take over your entire kitchen and need feeding twice a day without fail for the rest of your life, while you try to figure out what to do with the massive amounts that you are told to discard, you have also come to the right place.

I am going to teach you what you need to know to make a happy and thriving starter, without any of the superfluous details that you don't need to know, and it's all going to be done waste-free! Yep you heard me right. No discard.

A sourdough starter is a live culture which you can use to leaven (rise) baked goods by adding a small amount to the dough. It's the oldest form of leavening bread, and is thought to originate from ancient Egyptian times.

Bred: Sourdough Loaves, Small Breads, And Other Plant Based Baking: Amazon.co.uk: Tatton, Ed, Tatton, Natasha: 9780735244443: Books

A sourdough starter is created by mixing flour and water then allowing the mixture to sit for a period of time. During that time it begins to ferment and wild yeast, which are already present in the flour and the air around us, will start to grow and thrive as long as conditions are right.

The yeast eat the natural sugars in the flour and convert them into lactic (and other) acids which is what gives sourdough its characteristic tang. Carbon dioxide is produced by the yeast during this process and this is what makes the starter, and the bread you bake with it, rise.

Wild yeast is all around us, in the air, in our grains/flour and on the surface of fruit, and it was used in baking long before commercial yeast became available.

Gluten Free Sourdough Bread Recipe (fodmap Friendly)

Commercial yeast is reliable and fast whereas wild yeast is slow, a little temperamental and needs looking after. Having a starter is almost like having a real live tamagotchi or pet to look after.

Well, for starters as I am writing this, commercial yeast has become a hot commodity and access to grocery stores is limited. And as we know bread is life. I can't even imagine not eating it. So having a sourdough starter enables you to keep baking (and eating) homemade bread when you can't access dried yeast.

In my recipes and everything I eat. Well, sourdough bread is FULL of complex flavour and amazing texture in a way that breads made with commercial yeast can't even get close to. It is so worth the extra time and effort.

Sourdough Banana Bread (vegan)

Any container will do as long as it's not metal and it's food safe. A wide mouthed clear glass jar of between 750 ml (25 oz) and 1 litre (34 oz) is perfect. Something like a mason jar or Weck jar or a cleaned up store bought peanut butter/marinara sauce jar.

It should be clear so you can see inside easily, wide so it's easy to spoon the flour into and the starter out of, and a decent size so that when the starter rises there's no risk of it spilling over.

It should not be metal because there is a small chance that the acid in the starter could react with the metal. However, a metal spoon to stir the starter is fine because it isn't in contact with it for long enough for a reaction to happen.

Sourdough White And Oat Bread

Technically you can use any good quality unbleached flour to make a sourdough starter but some flours create more demanding or more vigorous starters than others.

Common flours to use are all purpose flour, bread flour, wholewheat flour or rye flour. The flour you use must be fresh. Don't use a bag of flour that's been sitting opened in your pantry for the last 6 months. If you want your starter to be healthy and happy you need to feed it fresh food.

My flour of choice and the one I recommend using in this recipe is rye flour because it is virtually fool proof. Rye flour starters tend to come to life a lot quicker than starters made with other flour, they get more nutrients so can cope well with the small feeds, and they are also hardier and can cope with a bit of neglect without dying on you.

Sourdough Rye Bread (beginner Friendly)

We might start the process all full of enthusiasm and excitement, but there will come a time when you forget to feed your starter for a few weeks or leave it in the back of the fridge for 3 months ... Yes I did that to my starter .... Sorry Percy. A rye flour starter will be much more forgiving and willing to spring back to life after that than any other.

In fact, if you already have a starter made with another flour that doesn't appear to be flourishing or that you think is dead, feed it some rye flour and watch it come back to life again. They just love it!

If you don't have any rye flour you can use wholewheat flour but things might happen a little slower and your starter will be more temperamental. You can even start with wholewheat then change to all rye or 50/50 rye later on to give it a boost and make it a bit more resilient and hardy.

Tinned 'heritage' Sourdough Loaf

And don't worry, just because you use rye flour to make your starter, it doesn't mean you can only make rye bread. You can use your rye starter to make white or whole wheat bread.

You can make a starter successfully with white flour but for this particular way of doing it, which is very different to other methods out there, it will not be as successful as it will with rye. The bacteria need the nutrients in the wholegrain flours to thrive and white flour doesn't have enough of them to keep it going well with minimal feeding and maintenance like this recipe involves.

You can use a mix of different flours in your starter. Like all purpose flour mixed with rye flour or wholewheat flour. However I recommend using 100% rye flour if possible, especially if this is your first starter, because you are going to get it up and running faster and it will be more resilient.

Avocado, Tahini And Super Sprouts On Toasted Sourdough

Try not to chop and change the flour or blend of flours you use to feed your starter when you are getting it established. Be consistent and use the same for every feeding if at all possible. It will make things a lot more predictable and progress easier to track.

Remember that all flours have different qualities and will likely change how your starter behaves. And again it's best to be consistent rather than chopping and changing all the time.

You can also start new and different starters using your original one as the parent. If you have a rye starter, use a little bit of it to seed a new wholewheat or white flour starter. You'll have a new and happy, thriving starter almost immediately.

Vegan Sourdough Bread For Beginners

When you make a starter you are cultivating wild yeast. To keep it happy