Bread in a bucket

I’ve been teaching myself how to make sourdough bread. It’s amazing what you can learn to do from YouTube…I am convinced that there is an instructional video for everything! I also have a couple of friends who are experienced sourdough bakers who have been coaching me via WhatsApp. So a huge shout-out and thanks to K & J.

The bread that’s available here is quite different to the stuff we get at home – it’s much lighter and sweeter: almost like brioche. That’s OK occasionally but it’s not something I can have regularly, and doesn’t work with my preferred toppings which are savoury.

Normally, I don’t eat much bread. A loaf can sit in the freezer for weeks - I have it in the flat for the occasional times I get a craving for Persian feta and super-ripe tomato on crunchy toast. But I guess it’s being far from home that stimulates a hankering for familiar or “homelike” things. We’ve all met those Aussies who pull out the “campers” tube of Vegemite from their backpack, but are normally strawberry jam or peanut butter types back in Bondi or Brunswick…

Anyway, a few weeks ago I had breakfast at one of the other vols’ places: a great cup of coffee and two perfect pieces of toast - crunchy, slathered with rich and creamy local butter and topped with a decent smear of that aforementioned yeasty delight. It was a gateway experience and now I’m hooked! I’m baking AND EATING a loaf a week!

Attending to the bread starter is like a hobby in itself: it is alive (being cultured with ambient, natural yeast) so needs to be checked and fed regularly to ensure it stays alive. At first I worried about it constantly. Now I'm a bit more relaxed - particularly as we've just celebrated its one-month birthday. A proud achievement but nothing like that of the numerous bakers out there who claim their starters to be 100 or more years old!

The starter has proven to be the easiest part of the process. The past month has been a series of experiments perfecting the dough and baking process. There’s been a lot of fails...the local birds have been happy! The texture of my loaf has definitely improved since I invested in a set of kitchen scales. I was trying to get by using cup measures, but the dough was either too wet or dense or just didn’t rise as it should. Initially I was cooking the bread in an old coffee can in the pressure cooker (instructions from...you guessed it...YouTube!) – but the result was predictable steamed, not baked. More hours down the YouTube rabbithole and I managed to stumble on some videos showing how to create an oven from a pressure cooker - found in every Nepali kitchen including mine - by placing a layer of sand in the bottom (instead of water) and then placing the item to be baked on a stand on top of that. Voila!

The latest adaptation has been to switch the sand / stand set-up into a metal bucket with metal plate for a lid. It’s a bit bigger so easier to get the loaf in and out, but I think that the extra space also creates more heat which means the cooking time is reduced and the loaf comes out lovely and crunchy on the outside and less dense within. I'm pretty happy!

Think I’ll start playing around with additives now. Saag & paneer perhaps? Or maybe cardamom and cinnamon …