Fresh Home Baked Sourdough Bread

A blog about simplicity, with a post on home baked bread? Yes indeed.

Believe it or not, home baked bread can be astonishingly easy with the recipe that my sister and I have been using lately, and surely healthier, lacking all those preservatives and the infamous imported from China contaminated wheat gluten. And, the taste of bread made without these unnecessary additions is quite remarkable...you will surely notice the lack of chemical smell and after taste in your first, warm from the oven bite ...rather like the difference in taste between a cake mix and a real, made from scratch chocolate cake...but that is for a future post, another endeavor that is much simpler than it sounds. My children are quite addicted to the taste and texture of home made bread these days...seems we always have some rising or baking to keep up with the demand.

While purchasing the ingredients to make your own regular yeast bread at home can be more expensive than buying bread from the grocery store shelf, sourdough bread is much more economical, producing much more wholesome bread for less than the cost of store bought loaves.

Sourdough starter is made quite simply by mixing flour and warm water, then letting it stand a while to allow the natural yeast in the flour and air to grow and multiply. Once the starter is ready, the recipe is simple as well, using just oil, salt, sugar, and flour mixed with a portion of the starter to make a delicious loaf of bread.

Here is a link to the source of the basic sourdough recipe and instructions we have been using with great success: Sourdough Baking: The Basics, by S. John Ross.