Each week or fortnight, I make a little change towards being more self-sufficient. Too many changes and I get overwhelmed. One a week or so seems achievable.

This week – I am baking my own bread. I lashed out and purchased a Breville Gourmet bread maker because it makes baguettes and we are suckers for a good baguette. I must admit these babies are the best thing the bread maker makes in my view. Crusty exterior, yummy middle and delicious straight from the oven with lashings of butter. They have also passed the fussy husband I-only-like-Bakers-Delight test.

My second adventure into the wonderful world of bread making is to make my own sour dough. This is day two of making the starter. I’m using the River Cottage recipe. You basically make a starter over a period of seven days, and “feed” it over that period. Post seven days, you can start making daily sourdough. How exciting.

The starter recipe (that’s above, in all its smelly glory at day 5):

100g strong baker’s flour

Enough water to make a paint like consistency

Mix and cover with gladwrap or a lid and leave in a warm place.

Each day, remove half of the starter, add 100gm flour and some water to return to the paint consistency. Keep feeding in this way for seven days. Each day you will see bubbles (natural yeast) and over time, I am led to believe, it smells better.

The night before you are ready to bake your loaf, take 100gm of the starter to 250gm strong flour and 275mls of water to make a sponge. Leave it overnight and it will look fermented again.

The next day, add 300gm of bread flour, 1 tblspn of olive oil and 10gm fine sea salt.

Hugh recommends a good hand knead and rise process, but I am little bit more practical right now. Rather than hand kneading, I will be using the bread making function in my bread maker – takes away a little of the whole connection with food part, but while I am still working full time it seems like a sensible compromise. I’ll update you on my first loaf.