Introducing Fleur

Ooo it seems ages since I popped by - that's what comes of having a social life. Giant Baby's god-parents live in New Mexico and were on a whistle stop tour of UK friends and family so we dropped everything to pack a year's worth of fun and frolics into two days.

Shall I show you what else I have been up to?

I have have been experimenting with starting a sourdough starter. She is called Fleur - named by Tall Girl. An excellent choice I think.

I started off following the instructions in River Cottage Every Day.

Hugh says to cover your starter with a lid. I did this and poor Fleur met an early demise. She did not smell good and went in the bin! Fleur#2 was going great guns (covered by a tea towel) until I put her in stainless steel bowl. A bit of interweb research and I discovered that you should NEVER put a sourdough starter in a metal bowl or use a metal spoon. She limped along for a few days after that but gradually seemed to recover some of here former vigour.

Last night I decided that the moment had come to test her out. I made the sponge according to Hugh's instructions and by this morning it was all bubbly and lovely.

I added the final ingredients and got a bit of a work out kneading her.

She is currently rising nicely and needs to carry on for the rest of the day. Sourdough is definitely not fast food!

I'll let you know how she turns out tomorrow.

xx