more baking

One of the first things you realise when you begin making sourdough bread is that you soon end up with a lot of leftover starter. About once a week, the starter needs to be refreshed, but only a few tablespoons of the current starter are needed for this.These few tablespoons, mixed with fresh water and flour, now become your new starter. Left to bubble away, it is soon ready to be used for a new loaf. The remainder of the old starter is now redundant.

You could of course throw the old  starter away. It is after all just flour and water. Yet somehow it is much more than that. The wild yeasts have turned a thick, bland paste into something alive and almost magical. It has the sweet /sour smell of a milky baby. It bubbles and froths with latent energy. It seems a crime to throw it away.

I toy with the idea of leaving pots of it on neighbours' doorsteps; a note attached 'please look after me'.

But fortunately there is no need for such drastic action. 

Vanessa from sourdough.co.uk has useful recipes for using leftover starter on the members' area of her website.
These scones, enriched with redundant starter, were some of the lightest and most flavourful I have made.

And looking for a way to use our plum harvest ( the plums shown below are the sum total of the yield this year) I adapted another of Vanessa's recipes to make a delicious plum sponge.

Both recipes were delicious and a good way to use up the lovely,creamy gloopy starter.

With talk of plums and with blackberries beginning to ripen on the hedgerows, it seems like autumn is not far away.

And this morning we awoke to thick clouds and mist after the overnight rain.

Autumn is at the door, but not I hope before we have enjoyed some more summer sun.

Happy weekend x