Learn about sourdough starter and get great sourdough recipes
Sourdough Starter
A sourdough is a type of dough often used to make bread or pancakes. They are easily made in the home and are very tasty. Because of this ease and how wonderful they are in both taste and smell the sourdough has become very popular – which makes the sourdough starter an essential.
Many people mistake the phrase to mean that you would be using a sourdough food item as the starter of a meal… this is far from the case. What sourdough starter means is a piece of sourdough that is continually reproducing yeast in it – with the help of occasional flour top ups from the baker.
Yeast
The yeast traditionally was wild yeast – found in the air, on hands etc, but most people these days will use store bought yeast to get things going.
In traditional cooking the sourdough starter is used over a number of days, collecting yeast form the air etc, before being cooked. This has led to all sorts of different practices in different areas – because the amount of yeast in the air is affected by such things as temperature and moisture.
Traditional Sourdough Starter Recipe
Still interested in making a traditional sourdough starter? Good for you! They are great tasting, but be warned it can take a number of goes to get things ‘right’ as you experiment with it – the amount of yeast in the air is too big a variable to easily predict.
If you are interested in making a sourdough starter then check out this sourdough starter recipe. Alternatively check out the video below for more guided help on creating the starter needed to make sourdough bread, pancakes etc.