Picture this, Melbourne Covid lockdowns, nowhere to go, nowhere to spend my coin, and an endless internet connection. It may not have been a time of great prosperity for the Australian economy, but there were about a dozen or so Kickstarter projects that were feeling the love from my corner of the world.
Coming in late to the party, but still hoping to cash in on the Sourdoughvid Craze was a fresh product known as the Kefirko Sourdough Fermenter. What else could the post-locked down masses need? More glass jars and rubber bands. You bet I slapped down my credit card, gasping and wheezing its last, before boiling the kettle and staring out the window in anticipation of its delivery.
And, I waited.
Then, I waited some more.
Just when I thought it had been years since the great credit card support, I checked to see that it had indeed only been June 2022. But my frown turned upside down when, in April 2023, my Kerfiko kit arrived in the mail.
Once again, it sat there until I found the great inspiration to knead a loaf and prove it for 36hours, instead of just tossing two coins to my baker, and racing for the toaster.
This all changed when I spotted 225+ year old sourdough starter being sold on Etsy. Of course it’s authentic. It’s older than Jonathan the Tortoise, and only slightly pipped at the post by Australia’s First Fleet. And, with a claim to age like that, why wouldn’t you try it?
A few days of tending and feeding and I was ready to give the starter a solid crack. The rules of bread a pretty simple: flour, water, salt, yeast - whack them all together in a bowl to form a dough. Knead the dough on a clean surface until the bendy, stretchy, windowpane type effect starts happening. You know, you can marvel at your loved one through a thin veil of dough. Delicious.
Pretty sure I fucked it up though. My dough did not bend it, stretch it, just a little bit. It did not window pane and, in fact, at one point resembled porridge. But, waste not, want not, I’ve let it prove over a day or so, and chucked it in the slow cooker to see what happens.
Come back tomorrow to see if we have a brick for our new house, or a crispy little loaf of something.
