For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been experimenting with this very simple formula:

• 500 g flour
• 12 g salt
• 300 ml water
• 200 g starter (or thereabouts, it’s hard to measure starter to the nearest gram)

When I first started exploring this formula, I started out with a mixture of 300 g bread flour, 200 g rye. The starter I feed whatever I have on hand, bread flour before it goes back to sleep in the fridge, rye if I need activity fast. Ever now and then, as a special treat, I throw in a handful of wholewheat flour, which is the yeast equivalent of feeding tequila to teenagers. I am pretty certain that sourdough purist will faint dead away at this laissez faire, laissez aller attitude but so far the yeast and bacteria population of my starter seems to be both enthusiastic and healthy. Which, in the end, is really all that counts.

While we’re ruminating on the subject, sourdough is one of these things that a fair number of people get far too mystical about, at least for my personal liking. Before the development of commercial yeast not that very long ago, naturally leavened bread was the only bread there was. Which means that great bread has been produced for millenia by people who a: thought the earth was flat and b: who’s idea of personal hygiene was a bath at Christmas time, and then only if you really needed it.

What I am saying is, don’t sweat it. We’re surrounded by everything we need to create leavening cultures. All we need to do is create the environment the little critters like to move into. A clean glass jar, clean to make sure the undesirables won’t take hold before the yeasts move in, some, ideally, organic wholewheat flour and water, as well as a source of gentle acidity is all you need. The acid is ideally being supplied by fruit juice, with natural pineapple juice being, apparently, the best and most effective choice. Mix, stir, cover with cheese cloth and wait for a couple of days. Chances are that after a week or so you’ll have your very own bread starter.

Anyhow, back to the 500 g mix. Size wise, it makes a loaf that lasts us about two to three days and fits the cloche perfectly. Mixture wise (if that’s a word) there really is no end to the possibilities.

I have been blown away by the difference small changes to the 500 formula make. Add rye, the dough becomes soft and sticky. Increase the bread flour, it develops long stands of gluten. Red Fife will make for a sweet, intensely flavoured bread, spelt will introduce dark nut flavours. There is no end to the possibilities, and this is just for a very basic, naturally leavened bread.

Tonight, after the utter failure of my last loaf, I am testing out a 100% Fife loaf, all naturally leavened. I am keeping the dough in the fridge overnight, to give the yeast the time it needs to do it’s work, slowly and patiently. Will post updates tomorrow.