As mentioned in my recent post, Breads & Flours, I’m wanting to start learning a lot more about bread baking, and my desired starting point is to learn (finally!) how to make sourdough bread. So, recently, I started my first sourdough starter, and… well, there’s a story to that adventure. Allow me to tell it.

I live in a freezing little apartment which occasionally gets exponentially warmer when I am cooking or baking a lot (which is usually about 3x a week at this point, since I tend to work ahead on meals for the days I’m at work, and I work long days). So, the fluctuating temperatures of my sourdough’s home is, I think, what took it so long to mature. I held on to this starter for 2 weeks before I got much action out of it… and even then… well… I’ll tell you what happened to it in a minute.

Before I go on with my sad sourdough starter story (which has a happy ending!), I’ll mention that for those of you who, like me, are new to this whole thing, I’m going to share the videos I used to help me get started on this so that if you’re wanting to get going on sourdough as well, maybe they can help you too. I’m super visual, so lots of photos and videos help me a lot. I picked a couple of favourites that I felt were helpful and to-the-point, and I used their notes to make my starter and get it going… may they be enjoyable and helpful for you as well!

Here are the videos I found super helpful:

Now, back to my starter. I loved it. I followed the directions. I cared for it. And it looked bubbly, smelled sour, and kept percolating for 2 weeks in my cold cold house, never really getting enough bubbling action to make a loaf of bread rise… and then… well I guess I should mention that I forgot to feed it twice. Not two days in a row, but twice. And it still looked normal when I went back to it, so I just resumed feeding it.

But here’s what happened: It started to look kind of “dry” on the top, and then eventually take on the look of yeast on the surface of it. Which…. I figured must a a temperature thing, or just the seal of my jar that made it do that. It’s not super airtight. So, I kept feeding it. But then! One day, I looked, and behold – at the top of my jar close to the rim, there was a little bit of mold. 🙁 So… given my husband’s sensitive condition and food allergies (he has a lot of allergies, and currently is battling a severe, cause-unknown [so far], flare up of eczema all over his body)… I decided to throw the starter away, just in case that “Dryness” was the beginning of mold spores. Who knows… maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But the jar had some, and I didn’t wanna risk it.

So! I looked up troubleshooting sourdough starter, and one suggestion if you have a cold environment is to keep your starter on an appliance that’s plugged in, and generates a constant source of warmth. So, I promptly whipped up a new starter and put it on top of my fridge.

Here’s the happy part – after just 2 days, my new starter doubled in size and was as bubbly as can be!!! It wasn’t sour quite yet, but had a really good yeasty smell… So I’ve been keeping that beauty going (now that its home is more consistently warm), and on Monday I’ll try baking my first loaf. I AM SO EXCITED! 🙂

For those of you who may be much more seasoned sourdough bakers, I wanted to ask you – What do you think took my original starter so long to mature? Also, do you think the dryness was mold, or is that normal? I had it going for about 2 weeks, and it looked good but not great the whole time. Smelled awesome. Am I correct that temperature was the main issue? Keep in mind that I missed 2 days of feeding it, although it looked good still the days following. The starter had a pancake batter consistency, not too dry at all)… Here’s a photo in case you need to see it… It’s  little hard to tell, but you can kind of see the dry “skin” look on the top. And the bubbles are pressing up underneath it, with only a few showing themselves on the surface.

Once I get better at this, maybe I’ll be qualified to share some tips of my own… but it’s gonna be a little while before I get there, I think. And hey, all of these questions- they are part of the journey, right? Learning to make anything new has its hurtles for everyone – that’s what makes us able to answer each others’ questions. You need to encounter some struggles in order to learn how to address them. *personal pep talk, over*

I’ll share a picture of my new starter at some point – at the moment it’s calmed down a bit since I just fed it, but I’m loving the bubbly starter life. And also, if you had a starter going that just seemed to die – try again! Don’t be afraid. If I can do it, so can you.

I would love to hear some of YOUR sourdough stories, if you have any! Maybe you can teach me something, or make me feel better about my original starter that failed (kinda).

Also, here’s an invitation for the newbies: Wanna learn how to do this with me? If you decide “yes!” then please tag @naomicakesofficial on Instagram so that I can see what you’re up to, and I’ll share updates on my account every so often as well. I’d love to hear how your journey is going, and see your beautiful loaves at the end of it all… if nothing else, maybe we can keep each other accountable, and spur each other on toward greatness in this regard.

Thanks for stopping in! Be back soon.

Naomi