Baking sourdough bread has become so easy that it feels effortless.
It doesn’t matter if I’m sick or tired or grumpy or overwhelmed (don’t worry, I’m not), there is always bread. It’s literally just minutes of hands-on work. But effortless doesn’t, shouldn’t and mustn’t mean joyless. To this day, thousands of loaves in, I still get a thrill when I lift the lid off an enamel roaster and see the risen loaf.
Unlike other household “chores”, baking bread has never become mundane or boring. I’m not quite sure why that is, but I suspect a large part of it lies in the enthusiasm with which the loaves are consumed.
These days I hardly ever do a small bake anymore – it feels wasteful to run Bobby II for a single loaf. My standard batch produces six slow-proved high hydration loaves for a total flour cost of $2.35 and $1 in electricity. This gives us two loaves to eat and four to share with our lovely neighbours. How cool is it that so much food can be produced for less than the cost of a takeaway coffee?
Last week I picked up a torn 12.5kg bag of bakers flour off the clearance pallet at Southern Cross supplies for $5, so the six loaves below cost me just 81c (technically $0.8072) in flour and flossy salt. I was pretty excited about that…
Five of those loaves went out to neighbours, fabric wrapped of course…
You see, whilst baking sourdough makes me happy, it’s the sharing of it that brings me joy. Which is why I cheerfully bake twice a week, rather than simply stocking up the freezer once a month.
Of course, it’s also hard to beat a chicken and mayo sandwich with backyard lettuce on freshly baked bread…
Last week, Big Boy’s old school friend Gabby moved into an apartment around the corner. We’ve known him since he was nine years old and it was with great excitement that we dropped around a furoshiki-wrapped loaf as a housewarming gift. He didn’t have a knife or a plate at that stage, so I suspect he just ate it like a caveman…
The following evening, the indigo cloth came back wrapped around a six-shot Negroni cocktail in a jar (I love that The Screaming Mongoose unpacked his cocktail shaker before his cutlery)…
I suspect it’s contraindicated, but I’m sure it helped with the shocking head cold I had at the time…
. . . . .
If you’d like to bake and share, you might be interested in our basic yeasted bread tutorial or, if you have access to some starter, the basic sourdough tutorial and the overnight sourdough tutorial. Or try our step by step focaccia for 23 year olds – it’s the perfect treat to take to a party!
Sorry folks, I don’t have any dried Priscilla starter at the moment. I’ll let you know when I have more to share!
How special that you can combine two faves–bread and furoshiki in one endeavor. You rock!
It would seem you are up late Ms Celia… Your wonderful gift of the dried sourdough starter has not gone unnoticed in our village. With the temperatures sky high at the moment, our oven is outside in the back verandah which is where bread is baked. Taiwanese people are not well versed is the finer arts of bread with most bread here of the sweet variety. We have been baking 2 loaves every 2 days which was a bit over the top for 2 people. We decided to gift a loaf to each neighbour that questioned what we were baking in our oven. The response has been amazing, so much so that we have now gifted some starter. I will attempt to translate you advice sheet into Chinese in the near future to ensure we maintain a satisfactory family tree of the mother. Your description of the young gentleman who may or may not have eaten the loaf like caveman made me smile. The last person we gifted a loaf to, did just that… Tore at the foot and demolished it with her husband before our very eyes. I can fully understand why you never tire of baking sourdough bread. It brings joy to the baker and joy to the eater. I thank you once more for the opportunity to experience Priscilla in all her glory…
Nick, that’s the BEST story ever! I’m sooo happy that Priscilla’s baby is thriving in Taiwan and giving you a reason to interact with the neighbours as well! xx
Like a caveman….I have seen this!! Yes, baking bread is done here without really thinking and thank you for sending this most basic of foods around the world.
I wish I was your neighbor! 🤗 The loaves are gorgeous and look so tasty. 💕 Sourdough has always been tough for me. 😑
I love your generosity
Oh Celia how much I love reading your posts! I’m not baking as much sourdough these day but working and living with 7 new adults means I get to share all the food, all the time. It really is the most wonderful thing!
This made me think of that saying ” it takes a village to raise a child” – your beautifully wrapped presents of bread are raising a village. I think that, in today’s society, that is absolutely priceless. I also think the Screaming Mongoose’s version of ‘thank you’ – is bloody marvelous!
Celia, your sourdough tutorials have been so helpful to me in my sourdough journey. I have dried my starter, Gertrude, and she has become quite the traveller I believe. Perhaps she and Priscilla have crossed paths during the past year or so :-) Now I am going to follow your Furoshiki tutorials as the book I ordered about how to do it has arrived and I am keen to give it a try. Thanks so much.
You made me want to bake some bread.
How wonderful that someone else sees the extra joy of making bread…the giving. I love sharing fresh bread with friends and neighbours. I gave up making bread for the last twelve months as we where eating to much of it and where told it was not good for us so we stopped eating. I have felt very lost the last twelve months and rather useless, even though I am a mother of three. Then it hit me, it was the bread or lack of…the smell of it in The oven. The simplicity of eating it fresh with butter and the happiness of those you share it with. Thank you for sharing the joy you bring to others 😁
Simple, baking bread = happiness
Your bread making is the gift that keeps on giving. I have baked, shared bread, starter, foccacia, recipes, links with others who have done likewise… ever widening those ripples of community ♡
Your loaves look spectacular Celia and I’m sure taste as good as they look. I am getting the same feelings when I open the oven and take the cast iron casserole out and see a fabulous loaf that I have made, so exciting.
Celia I love your beautiful bread and so stylishly wrapped. Thanks for your gift of some starter- I have been baking bread for two weeks now and loving it. Your tutorials are amazing and my sister in law has now started making her own bread with a gift of my starter inspired by lunch of ham sandwiches on fresh bread. The girls at work are also clamouring for some starter so they can bake bread. My three sons are very happy with my new passion. So a big thank you for sharing your love of sourdough
Thanks to your generosity in sharing your lovely Priscilla, I now have Gidget, and I am making about three loaves a week. This summer I have taught my 9 year old granddaughter how to make a beautiful loaf and today she took her first “100% independently produced” loaf today to give to her other grandmother. I am so proud to have already passed along the joy in sharing these loaves. I love the way you’re wrapping them in that beautiful cloth. I need to see what I can do to make my gifts even more beautiful. Thank you, Celia!
Wonderful! The bread love is being shared all over the world 😀
The Screaming Mongoose has his priorities right.
I would love to be one of your neighbors! Beautiful loaves that you are sharing. And what a thoughtful friend Big Boy has.
Dearest Celia, the Priscilla you had send me over a year ago, has become my best friend, it’s been treated with love and passion. The bread baking has become like my Friday evening after work meditation. And I love to share with friends and neighbors. Yet loving it, there is something which at times turns me off. It’s cleaning up those dough sticky bowl, it takes for ever to rinse and scrape off the dough leftovers from the bowls the dough was rising. Do you have any suggestion for making it a happier cleaning off of my bowls? I would love to hear your advice.
Hahaha…Cornelia, I scrape my bowl as clean as possible (do you have a dough scraper? They’re a great investment of just a few $) and then put it in the dishwasher! Comes out clean as a whistle.. ;-)
Thank you Celia for your quick response. I don’t have a dishwasher, but I’m sweating over to clean the bowls. I’ll take your advice of getting a dough scraper, hopefully that will add to my baking happiness.
Life is good with real bread in the house isn’t it Celia? Your loaves look beautiful as always x
I’m sure that cocktail helped your cold enormously. I love that the gift of bread is always freely given with no expectations but is almost always reciprocated. I got a lovely jar of local honey recently as an exchange gift – it went very well with the bread 😉.