I first got into sourdough baking back in 2011 after making my own starter as part of a Daring Bakers Challenge. I loved baking with it and maintained it faithfully for almost four years, but then my schedule started getting busier and my poor little sourdough starter eventually died from neglect in the back of my fridge 🙁 I was pretty sad about it (and kind of embarrassed too – you’ll notice that I never mentioned it here until now!), but I didn’t have the time or energy to put into cultivating or acquiring and maintaining a new starter. Recently though, I’d been wanting to get back into the sourdough game (have you SEEN all the gorgeous sourdough bread on Instagram?!), so last week when a friend offered me some of her 100 year old rye starter, I jumped at the chance. I have been nursing a little glass jar of bubbling flour and water on my kitchen counter ever since and I couldn’t be happier about it! I’ve noticed that this well-established starter is more reliable and predictable than the one I made myself, which probably never quite achieved its full strength as a starter, and I’m very excited to experiment with it.
See all those happy little bubbles?
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For a while I’ve been searching for a “country style” rustic sourdough loaf with some whole grain in it to bake as our daily bread, and after lots of trial and error, I finally settled on this formula, based on a 