If you’ve read my tutorial on making and keeping a Sourdough Starter, you’ll know that I have my own sourdough, and like to use it as often as I can. Sourdough bread is great for you, not only because it’s homemade and delicious, but there’s been scientific research to show that it improves the nutritional properties of starches, lowers blood glucose and insulin responses to bread (handy if you’re diabetic, pre-diabetic, or have pancreas issues), increases metabolic response (so you feel full faster, and burn it off faster), and is better for gut health if you have Crohn’s, Colitis, or IBS.
However, unlike quick commercial yeast, keeping a Sourdough starter means keeping a live culture in your house, and it doesn’t act as quickly. To make a good sourdough, you’re actually making fermented bread, which is why it has all the great health benefits, but also why it’s trickier and takes a bit longer than commercial yeast. As such, there can be a lot of trial and error, and I make many bread bricks before finding the trick to it.
Enter this amazing book: Homemade Sourdough: Mastering the Art and Science of Baking with Starters and Wild Yeast by Jane Mason. Not only does it contain great recipes, which is does, it has a lot of great techniques on how to use a bread starter. There’s tutorials on how to choose flour, what equipment to use, common pitfalls of breadmaking, troubleshooting mistakes, tips on making Sourdough, baking terminology, and much more.
After a few minutes of reading, I decided to try a few recipes, and I ended up with the best and most delicious bread I’ve ever had! No problems with bread not rising enough, being too hard or too dry, the instructions were clear and concise, and were really easy to follow.
But if that’s not enough reason to pick up Homemade Sourdough, let me just tell you about some of the recipes:
- Ploughman’s Bread with dark ale, cheddar and chutney
- Bacon, Jalapeño, and Cheddar Sourdough
- Jasmine Tea Buns
- Chocolate Sourdough Cream Cheese Swirls
- Cranberry and Nut Loaf
- Cinnamon Rolls, and many more
Each recipe I’ve tried has turned out perfectly, and is absolutely delicious. I can’t recommend this book enough – you’ll find excuses to make bread, and you can eat better, improve your gut health, and have a home that smells of fresh baked bread, which is really the best part, right?!
