|
Sourdough Breadmaking for Everyone
 Welcome to what is intended to become a really comprehensive Sourdough Breadmaking site, which is dedicated to you, the Sourdough Baker. In it, you'll find everything you need to make sensational sourdough bread at home.You'll find recipes, bakery stories, information about home baking ingredients, new ways of doing things, baker's tricks for producing great sourdough bread, breadmaking tools and equipment, different techniques for making and keeping sourdough starter, and lots more.
We also have an online shop, which can cater for everything you need as a dedicated or beginner home baker. We supply fresh flours, sourdough starter, utensils, hand breadmaking kits, quality breadmaking books and much more at the SourdoughBaker Shop. It's also the place where you can book for upcoming breadmaking workshops and classes at the SourdoughBaker Woodfired Cafe
Sourdough Breadmaking Classes and Workshops
If you like the site, and would like to have me come to your venue or kitchen to conduct sourdough breadmaking workshops with your group, have a look at the options, ideas and dates for breadmaking workshops and demonstration classes while you're here.
The SourdoughBaker Woodfired Cafe is born!
That's right, another Sourdough bakery has been born - but with a difference. I've become obsessed with sole baking, which for the uninitiated is baking bread directly on the sole of the oven. It's something I always wanted to try.
One thing led to another, and now I've opened a cafe which is powered mainly by a glorious (but small) woodfired oven, allowing me to pump out some really sensational sole baked breads. On a good day, this oven enables me to bake some of the best breads I've ever made! Not only that, but the oven also prepares almost everything else on the cafe's menu too - pizzas, fancy italian style snacks, pastries, cakes, vegetables and even the meats the cafe uses on its wonderful sandwiches.
If you are in Newcastle any time soon, check out the SourdoughBaker Cafe on 774 Hunter Street. It's on the west end of town, a lovely downbeat part of Newcastle, well away from all the trendy stuff. I'm hoping to run classes from there soon, so stay tuned!
What's SourdoughBaker.com.au all about?
This site is for everyone who wants to know more about the ancient and fascinating art of making bread from a natural sourdough culture, or levain, as the french call it. While some people have come to sourdough bread in recent times, others have been producing it for decades. I hope
to have useful information for all levels of baker. Sourdough culture can be used in regular recipes too, to add flavour and nutrition to any recipe!
As the site has developed, I have included some special goodies to help you make the finest sourdough bread in your neighbourhood. I've spent many years perfecting many different sourdough breadmaking techniques, and in this site I've tried to distill these into a simple home breadmaking system, which is easy to live with, and allows you to be able to experiment confidently! I've been a professional sourdough baker for over fifteen years, and I learned my trade at home and in numerous bakeries, not at technical college. You get the benefit of learning from all my mistakes!
Note: If you would like to flesh out your breadmaking knowledge, I've begun selling some of my favourite Baking Books too, right here, through Amazon. My customers report fast shipping and good prices, and as long as they are happy, so am I!
On another front, right now I'm working on a powdered version of my own original sourdough starter. This starter has been lovingly tended for over two decades, and includes cultures from all around the world - it has literally made millions of loaves of bread, and is as close to indestructible as it's possible to be. Currently I'm getting good results from the dried version, and you can get a really good starter going in only 3 days using this. If you would like some, together with a booklet explaining lots of interesting stuff, you can get it here!
I'm also successfully shipping fresh twenty year old sourdough starter in a 'desem' or dry dough form to anywhere in Australia. It's useable straight out of the container, so you can make fresh sourdough bread straight away! And I'll pay the freight!
To find out more, have a look at Sourdough Starter Supply.
In this website, you'll easily find free sourdough breadmaking information on a wide variety of subjects. These include:
 Breadmaking Ingredients:
Subjects include information on all the different grades of organic wheat flour, spelt flour, rye flour, semolina flour; as well as good info on types of salt that are best for breadmaking, and much more. I will soon include information about grains such as barley, millet, rice, oats and corn. I also provide information on how to prepare different ingredients for the best results in your breadmaking.
Sourdough starters: 
Under 'Liquid Sourdough Starters, there is my sure fire recipe for a 7 day sourdough starter, as well as a sourdough starter made from spelt, how to maintain a sourdough starter, healing your sourdough starter if it gets neglected, how to store your starter for various lengths of time.
This site explores lots of different types of sourdough starter too - for example, 'old dough' sourdough starter is a great technique for a no fuss way of making sourdough. Or, for the advanced sourdough baker, the dry dough or desem technique is just amazing - though you're in for a bit of work to successfully run a desem. Once these starters are up and running, they are virtually bulletproof, and will make awesome bread at a moment's notice pretty much any time.
In this section of the site there are methods showing how to make different types of starter, including liquid sourdough starter, old dough sourdough starter, how to transform your liquid starter to old dough sourdough starter for no more feeding worries. Advanced sourdough bakers will enjoy the demystification of the method called Dry Dough or Desem sourdough, which gives both ease of use and great flavour. There are articles on the ways to use a powdered starter and much more. Coming soon will be some little handy e books too. Right now, this site probably has more information about sourdough starters all in one place than any other!
Sourdough Recipes:
 The recipe section just keeps growing - right now there are enough recipes in this site to keep you baking for months on end without repeating yourself! Some are raised on liquid starter, like my basic sourdough recipe, a really interesting wholemeal sourdough recipe, a great white spelt sourdough recipe and a wholemeal spelt sourdough recipe.
Then, there are a whole bunch of old dough recipes, including a more interesting 'basic' sourdough recipe, which is designed to teach 'baker's feel', as well as to create some 'old dough' - for use instead of liquid starter. There is another white sourdough recipe, a light rye sourdough recipe, a medium rye sourdough recipe and more to come using the old dough technique.
For the full list of sourdough recipes, follow any of the links below:
Recipe Section Highlights:
The sourdough recipe section has been broken up into specific sections, common to the type of sourdough leaven used. Some sections are really good for beginners, or for 'young starters', which have not yet stabilised. Others are strictly for bread geeks.
For beginners, there are all the 'semi leaven' sourdough recipes, which are sourdough breads made using small amounts of yeast for lighter and yet flavoursome breads. They include, or will include, recipes for
Semi Leaven breads are really useful when you might be time pressed, or you just want a surefire success. They tend to work really well, no matter what. Also, they contain less than a quarter of the usual amount of yeast in commercial bread, which makes them relatively safe also.
I've included a whole section dedicated to what are known as 'porridge bread' sourdough recipes, which all utilise different techniques for pre-softening whole grains and seeds. These techniques make for delicious and nutritious breads.
The name 'porridge bread' has nothing to do with porridge, by the way - or at least, not the type we have for breakfast anyway. A porridge bread, or blanched grain or blanched seed bread, is a type of bread where a component of either whole grain, seed or whole meal is used.
Blanching is used with wholemeal flours and seeds, whereas making a 'porridge', or cooking is necessary for using many whole grains.
The Porridge Bread section includes recipes for some of the following breads:
Porridge Bread (PB) Recipes 
I've recently delved into the world of Dry Dough Sourdough, which seems to be exactly like desem sourdough. It's for advanced bakers, because it takes a bit of work and technique to get it going, but when it's done, it's very low maintenance and makes stunningly good sourdough bread.
So far, there's the following articles are written, but I promise there will be lots more:
Breadmaking Equipment
A section detailing all kinds of home breadmaking equipment including domestic ovens, dough mixers, processors, breadmaking machines and so on is in the pipeline, so stay tuned. Right now there is a shop where you can get some useful stuff, and some information about basic breadmaking utensils, useful stuff to have in your home bakery and more.
Most of the extra things you'll require to make sourdough bread at home are very inexpensive, and simple. If you have the right things, you'll be able to make your home made sourdough bread cleanly and efficiently. This is important! You'll see the dedicated home bakery really is a place of care and thought. They don't stay clean and organised without some careful thought to setup and ease of use. So far, you can read the following articles:
The site covers, or will cover, baking techniques, how to best use mixers and other equipment, kneading techniques, shortcuts and more. This site is all about fine detail - I don't assume you know everything, but I don't assume you know nothing either. I try to provide just the right amount of detail to get the job done, step by step, with pictures. So far, there's:
Tips & Tricks 
Over the years I've accumulated quite a few anecdotes and stories which may bring a smile or a gasp, and describe a bit more about the obsession that became a bakery. There's lots more, and lots more to come. So far, there's:
Stories 
SourdoughBaker Shop
As this site has developed, many of you have contacted me with questions about books, utensils, hard to get ingredients and equipment. The SourdoughBaker Shop will help, with a complete range of everything you need to make your home sourdough bakery a total success. I have Sourdough Starter ready to go complete with care instructions. I have fresh organic flour. I'll be adding products all the time, and I can offer competitive prices and solid product knowledge. In most cases, I've used these things personally - in fact, they won't be listed in my shop unless I can personally recommend them as reliable, useful or simply a 'must have' for the home baker. Check it out regularly, please!
Note: content that is listed here in blue is linked. That which isn't blue is yet to be written or uploaded, so please bear with me!
|
