Sourdough Days 3-5

Well my dough is looking pretty good! And tell you what- it definitely smells like a sourdough!!
I've been feeding it every morning, which has been easy because I do it just before I feed my dogs! Half a cup of kibble for the puppies and half of a cup of flour and water for the dough :-D



Luckily I got some awesome tips from a friends husband who started his dough 6 weeks ago, he informed me that every 4th day or so you need to 'reduce' the dough back down to about 100gr (or its original size) and I'm so glad he gave me this helpful hint otherwise I'm sure I would be floundering with huge amounts of dough over the coming weeks!

So yesterday being the 4th day I took out about half of the mix. I'm not really spending too much time weighing out ingredients, I'm just doing it by eye- this could end up being my downfall but I'm using the excuse that when they started this ancient technique they didn't measure the ingredients (I'm just lazy and against weighing things).



I used about half of what I took out to make a sneaky tester dough just to taste to see if it was actually sour-doughy and it actually surprised me! I was feeling especially HANGRY so I didn't make a proper bread by kneading for 10 minutes and allowing it to prove for 3 hours, I just added a bit of spelt flour and salt and gave it a quick knead so what I ended up with was quite dense and damper-like.

I threw it in the oven at around 200 degrees for about 25 minutes (I only made it dinner-roll sized) and when I pulled it out I tucked straight in while it was hot! Matt helped me eat it and smothered salty butter all over it- yummmm!



It was delicious! I know I was a half-job-Harry in cooking it, but I got the general idea of how my dough tasted. It had an awesome distinct sourdough taste and only after 4 days!! I can only imagine how much better it's going to get after a few more weeks... And when I actually prepare it properly too lol!


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