Pet Sitting Sour Dough

I've previously posted that I want to try and make my own bread. I've also been making an effort to reduce the amount of plastic we use when buying bread. Although making our own bread seemed like an obvious option for reducing plastic I just haven't felt ready to take the plunge.

The sour dough my friend made for us - delicious!

Until recently, when a friend asked me to take care of his pet for a month - in the form of a sour dough starter. The starter has been going for over six months. It was made using grapes from the vine in their backyard and flour. Since then it has made hundreds of loafs of sour dough bread.

We have received a few delivered fresh out of the oven to our house. I have been impressed by the high standard of what they have baked.

Their sour dough has been a great consistency, shape, appearance and flavour. It is as good as any you will buy in an artisan bakery.

So you can imagine why it has seemed intimidating to take on. I have never made bread in my life.

The starter mixture

As part of the handover he did a demonstration of the key stages of preparation during an hour long play date with his son and Turtle (we are in the same mum's group). This may not sound like a big deal but each step is followed by a proofing time of 3 to 4 hours so it would have taken a bit of organisation to set up.

After my hour crash course, and some detailed instructions emailed to me the following day, I am feeling surprisingly confident about taking on this new challenge.

I hope it won't end in tears.

Taking care of the sour dough starter itself isn't causing me too much concern, but I'm not sure if that will change. A colleague mentioned that people can be quite secretive and precious about their starters, particularly professional bakers. Luckily my friends are pretty laid back so I think they'll be happy if it stays healthy and alive.

I'm keeping it in the fridge to slow down the fermentation process. It needs to be fed organic (unbleached) flour daily and a bit of tepid (room temperature) water to mix it in.

So far it hasn't grown much at it all so I have left it out of the fridge today and put it out to sit in the sun for an hour. I guess it will take a bit of trial and error to learn what to do. If it is left to sit in the heat too long it will become quite acidic.

It has definitely been interesting learning about the process. It is quite simple and methodical, which suits my scientific brain.

Have you ever made your own bread?

Plastic Free Bread

Since Plastic Free July started I have found myself being much more mindful each time I head to the shops for groceries. This has been particularly true when buying bread.

A friend is in the habit of baking her own (delicious!) sour dough bread. While this is a goal I have set for myself I am not quite ready to take it on just yet.

The next best thing, which is a lot less time consuming, is to simply buy bread without plastic. I have done this on four separate occasions in the last couple of weeks. Each time has been from a local chain bakery - three different ones so far.

The first time I was on my way home from toy library duty and had not prepared myself at all for the task. I grabbed a reusable shopping bag from the back of the car, took a quick look in it to make sure it wasn't too grubby, and used that.

I'm not sure if I was feeling conspicuous the first time, or if the girl serving me was just a total cow. I asked for a loaf of bread (unsliced) to be placed into my reusable bag. She immediately grabbed a plastic bag that they would normally put the bread in. I quickly repeated that I didn't want plastic and she curtly replied, "I need to use it to pick up the bread". After that she would not meet my eye. I even smiled and tried to catch it. She did not make eye contact. She clearly thought I was a crazy hippy freak.

Each time since then has been completely fine with the person serving me being lovely and helpful. On one of the occasions I was organised enough to bring my own soft plastic bag (see picture above). The lady sliced the bread and tied it for me. I have kept the tie to reuse.

I reused the bag and tie when I bought six rolls to have lentil burgers last week. Since I didn't have the foresight to bring two bags I bought unsliced bread again at the same time (for $6.20 - bargain!).

I am pleased to have overcome whatever it was that was stopping me from previously buying my bread plastic-free. I am confident that I can continue doing this in future.

Thank you Plastic Free July!

Have you ever thought about buying your bread plastic-free?

Once again linking up with Essentially Jess for #IBOT