The Sourdough Chronicles

Once upon a time, in a kitchen far far away, there lived a lovely princess, uhh well, a lovely but bedraggled mother. More than any other thing this lovely but bedraggled mother liked to bake bread. Big round loaves, long crusty loaves, sturdy wheaten loaves, any kind of bread, this mother liked to bake. Though she was surrounded by five mischievous little imps who spent their days tugging on her apron and demanding her attention, she continued to bake bread. And the five mischievous little imps continued to gobble up her bread as soon as she pulled it from the oven. So the lovely but bedraggled mother had to make still more bread the next day. This went on for many years.

One day as the poor mother sat at her table after slicing up yet another warm loaf of bread and feeding it to the little imps she remembered that many many years ago, she used to make sourdough bread. French Country Sourdough Bread, Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread, Sourdough Bread with Cornmeal and Oats, Sourdough Bread with Walnuts, she thought off all the kinds of sourdough bread she used to make many long years ago. She also remembered that the round crusty loaves of sourdough bread were very very large and the maybe it would take two days for it to be gobbled up instead of only one day like the loaves she was making now. With that thought, she decided to make sourdough bread once again!

The very next day, the mother found a plastic bowl to make her starter in because she knew that very very bad things would happen to the poor little starter if one was to make it in a metal bowl. Into the bowl, she put 1/2 a cup of soft flour and 1/4 a cup of pure water. Then she stirred. She used a wooden spoon and stirred and stirred until the starter was a smooth soft ball. Then she covered it with a clean kitchen towel. The day after that, she took off the towel and could see right away that something amazing had happened. Wild yeast from the air in her own kitchen had found it's way into the soft ball of flour and water and had made some little bubbles on top of the dough. Once again, she took up her wooden spoon and stirred in another 1/2 a cup of soft flour and 1/4 a cup of pure water and stirred and stirred. Once again, she covered it with the clean kitchen towel. She did this for two more days and by the fourth day their were many many bubbles on the top of the dough because so much wild yeast had found it's way into the soft dough and started to grow there. After four days the mother knew that she had made a very good starter indeed and so she started to make her bread... To be continued.