Kate Downham

I really like glass loaf pans. They have lasted longer for me than ceramic ones, make lovely crusts, plus have the benefit of being able to look at the sides of the loaves as they're rising. The ones I use are "O'Cuisine" brand, and are available in many countries.

Some tips for starter troubles:
• There are several ways of creating a starter, and not every method is going to work for every baker - some people mix up flour and water and leave it alone for several days, and sometimes this works, but I find that feeding it every 24 hours, while giving it a stir every 12 hours is more reliable.

• Use wholegrain rye flour to begin a starter or to get it active again - you can switch over to whatever flour you like once it’s active. Wholegrain rye provides lots of minerals, enzymes, bacteria, and yeasts that help to kickstart a starter. Other 100% wholegrain flours are good choices, but rye is the best.

• Use water without chemicals in it to begin your starter. Once your starter is active, you can use town tap water, but in the first week or two it’s best not to.

• 100% to 120% hydration (e.g. 50g flour to 50-60ml water or 1/3 cup flour to 1/4 cup water) is best for beginning a starter - a batter-like consistency encourages yeasts and bacteria to multiply rapidly.

• Starters need to ‘breathe’ as they grow - have the bowl or jar open to the air while it’s actively culturing, and only put a lid on it when you want to store it.

• 22-24ºC (71-75ºF) is the ideal temperature for beginning a starter. If your room is cooler than this, use warmer water (up to 43ºC/110ºF is fine), and try to keep the jar wrapped up in a blanket or insulated in some other way. You can also snuggle a hot water bottle up next to it. Higher culturing temperatures will make it ferment more rapidly, so you’ll need to feed more frequently if you can’t find a cooler place for it.

• Don’t expect your starter to bake the best quality hearth loaves as soon as it’s bubbly - it can take a couple of weeks of daily feeding to get it strong enough, in the meantime, high hydration pan loaves, pancakes and other discard recipes can be made with great success.

• It’s not ‘cheating’ to start with a piece of someone else’s successful starter, or some purchased dehydrated starter - soon enough it will turn into your starter, with your unique local yeasts, bacteria and flavours, and will be indistinguishable from a starter created by you from scratch.

Thank you all for the helpful replies!

Tereza Okava wrote:i think you're doing well to address the "overanalysis" aspect that has permeated sourdough/baking culture (and beermaking). Reading some of the things out there I might feel like if I can't use one specific percentage protein flour and maintain at perfect temp X I cannot make bread (and my 88-year old mother in law would laugh and laugh). Especially when you're in places where you can't (or won't) get specific italian 00 flour on Amazon, for example, it can feel hopeless.

I realize this is not something you can do anything about, but the reason I stopped making sourdough was the skyrocketing price of cooking gas-- it was no longer feasible. I don't have space for a rocket oven here in my urban setting, but a few years ago I got myself an air fryer oven, which (wouldn't you know) turns out to make really good sourdough. I revived my starter recently to get back into the groove. Maybe consider encouraging people to try other baking options? In the meantime, most of the bread we have been making was steamed (Chinese buns) or cooked in a plan (turkish flatbread, etc), and occasionally even in the rice cooker.

I know! Our house gets cold in winter, and hotter than ideal sometimes in summer, most bakers in the past faced similar challenges and still managed to make bread. I spend a lot of time in the book teaching how to get around temperature (and timing) variables without electricity, expensive gadgets, or lots of effort, and how to focus on certain recipes and techniques at certain times of year, and use other recipes at techniques in different conditions.

I’ve never heard of baking in an air fryer before. Would you be interested in testing some of my recipes out in yours? A friend of mine was asking about bread machine sourdough so maybe baking in countertop gadgets is something I need to look into more and give instructions for.

Rio Rose wrote:Hi Kate! Cheese and now sourdough, hooray and thank you!

I've been doing the sourdough bread dance every week for several years now, but still have much to learn. My goal was always to be able to bake like my ancestors, without a scale, without analyzing hydration, just by my hands in the dough. But first I had to learn the  basics. I delved deep into recipes and forums and measured every last particle to the gram like the experts said you must. For years. Technical and intimidating, both.

Once I started getting comfortable with that process, I wanted whole grain that I milled at home, not the shelf-stable stuff on grocery shelves. Fresh-milled flours perform quite differently, and 100% whole grain is harder to make lofty. My loaves went from wondrous to wonky.

Every layer of this process that I uncover, there is another beneath. I am only just getting to a place where I can make a delicious intuitive whole grain bread (no measuring of flour, starter, water or salt). Though I have yet to make a whole grain loaf that rises to the heavens like that sifted shelf stuff.

Still - years later, the number one hardest thing is the timing of it all, and fitting that into a life chock full of other demands. Now that I'm using fresh-milled flours, I am soaking them anywhere from 4-12 hours prior to adding starter. It makes a difference, but is an added time constraint that takes my bakes to three days of process.
Even without the soaking, it's a long haul, the timing of which is dictated by your wee sour-inducing beasties, not you.

How then, to not be held hostage by your bread baking schedule? My dream sourdough baking book would contain tips and tricks for just that.

As an example - and this is something I've never read in any book or forum, but I recently learned (out of necessity, as midnight came and went) it's possible to retard (refrigerate) your dough during bulk ferment instead of the traditional final proof, if your life blows up and you can't keep waiting on it. The bread that emerged from this reverse process, was excellent. That was a freeing lesson!

In hindsight I think it is so much more important to have a good understanding of the science and why bakers do all those technical moves, the secret lives of yeast and bacteria. That good understanding will allow us novice bakers to pivot, explore, make it more of a creative process than simply following another’s route.

You’ve nailed all my issues - the perfection and analysis paralysis is real too. But I’d tell my early baking self that sourdough is like the rest of life, you can’t let fear of messing up stop you. And I would never have believed this in the beginning, but I’ve eaten every single one of my failed lumpy brick-like loaves, and loved them. Eat your failure! You might be surprised at how delicious it is. It’s fun, too. I look forward to reading your work!

Sounds like we have been down similar roads. For years I would measure the water and salt for my dough, and just add flour by feel, I even managed to run a successful bread market stall using this method. I’m providing instructions for this method, and how to figure out by feel how much flour is enough. Writing this book has forced me to measure more to get exact amounts for recipes, and to figure out simple measurements that I can do even when I’m exhausted at the end of the day. I’m working with 100% wholegrain flours

And you’re in luck - I’ve been writing a lot about scheduling, and how to figure out a sourdough schedule that works with a variety of different lifestyles.

Tanya White wrote:One more thing maybe off-topic: I would love to find a sourdough bread recipe that works with my oval romertopf clay baker with glazed bottom (it should not be preheated empty).

I used to bake in Romertopf loaf pans, but I have not used the clay baker. The bread pans were good in that the outsides could be soaked in water, which then adds extra steam to the oven for the first part of baking. I’ve read about baking in a ceramic baking cloche that can be used either preheated or not preheated, so I imagine you could just grease the baker, proof your loaf in it, and then put it in the oven when it’s ready. I would leave the lid on it for longer than for a typical preheated dutch oven bread, as it will take longer to get to temperature and spring up, so maybe bake for 30 minutes with the lid on, then bake with the lid off for as long as it takes to finish the loaf.

Josh Hoffman wrote:I think with our household, it may be more related to the quantity of things needed, or in other words, scale. It seems that most books we read are about a single guy or an older couple or some variation in between. One or two people to consider. A lot of time, larger numbers of people are not addressed and if they are, it is more along the lines of a community. Our kids are 8YO down to incubating so they do help out but not like an adult can.

That’s good that you mention scale. I’ve been scaling down my recipes for the book so that they will fit smaller households than mine, but I still want a book that me and my kids can look at and make the amounts that we’re used to making rather than having to do maths as we bake, so I was trying to figure out how to have larger batch options in there as well - this will be something I’ll tacking in the designing phase. Your comment has made me realise that it’s not just my family that would benefit from large batch instructions - thank you!

Shannon Sell wrote:I use fresh milled flour. Most recipes online and in cookbooks use all purpose store bought sifted flour. I've not had much luck translating recipes. If I had good recipes or at least some working knowledge about how to use freshly milled... What I need to do to get a good loaf.. How to knead a sticky mess.. When to use flour or oil.. Those things might be helpful.

I need one master fresh milled recipe that can be bread rolls, burger buns, and a sandwich loaf. If I add a bit extra honey it can be a sweet bread recipe. I also need tortillas that will fold and not rip, English muffins that are cragly, biscuits and bagels that can pull apart instead of crumble to bits..  The flavor and nutrition are there along with the long term storage of whole grains. But it doesn't perform well for what I have in mind for them... so I keep going back to store bought.

So far I have mastered a sourdough recipe. I make once a week. Either 4 or 6 boules. I mix it in the morning. Slow ferment over the day and stretch/fold to develop gluten, at night shape and keep them covered in the fridge, pulling them out to bake as needed. I've kept them in the fridge for as much as 5 days with no problems. I keep the starter in the fridge too so I don't have to feed it all the time.

You’re in luck - I bake with fresh-milled unsifted flour as well, so you won’t need to change anything to make my breads. One of my challenges with the book is to make the recipes suitable for other types of flour too, so I’ll be looking for recipe testers when it’s time, to make sure there are plenty of options for everyone that work.

I’m determined to create a book that will help people to bake more bread, and I’m wondering if I’ve addressed every possible issue...

What are the things that have prevented you from making your own sourdough or yeast bread in the past?

Please feel free to give feedback and suggestions here to help get more people baking great bread at home!

The main roadblocks I can see are lack of time, lack of organisation, and unpredictable lives. I’m creating some strategies and recipes to address these - are any of these things that make it difficult for you to make bread? Are they something that you’ve overcome? How have you overcome these difficulties?

Also a couple of other things I think may be roadblocks for some might be perfectionism and analysis paralysis - too many bread experts saying that you absolutely have to do this and absolutely can’t do that, and conflicting experts saying different things, it’s hard to know where to start - I’m addressing this by going through every possible option for natural breadmaking and explaining why it is done, so that the reader can choose for themselves what steps to take, and create recipes and timelines that work for them.

What other things might prevent people from making bread as often as they would like?

Burra Maluca wrote:When I was involved with goats in the UK, which is a looooong time ago, there was a huge difference between the breeds.

Anglo Nubians would basically need to be bred every year to keep the milk flowing.

Pure Toggenburgs every year.

British Toggenburgs every other year.

Alpines and British Alpines mostly every year.

Saanen and British Saanen could be left for five, six, maybe seven years and still produce about a pint of milk a day at the end.

My own little British Toggenburg could give milk for three years after kidding.

I knew quite a few one-goat smallholders who would buy a recently kidded British Saanen from a reputable breeder and basically never have to breed.

I also knew a vegetarian breeder of Anglo Nubians who would put the male kids down at birth, though that never sat quite with me.

I am finding that here in Tasmania toggenburgs milk for longer than saanens.

We milked through for three years once, the milk supply dropped down quite a lot towards the end.

We’re just coming out of milking through for two years now and it’s gone really well. Supply didn’t drop down as much over winter as it would if they were pregnant, and then in springtime they picked right up, producing the full amount they would when freshly kidded.

Cheese quality is still excellent this late in the lactation.

Goats can be a good option for a vegetarian dairy if you have a market for pet/lawnmower goats. If I were doing this, I would also pick a breed that would milk through, so that there weren’t so many kids that needed rehoming. Miniature goats seem very popular here for pets, so finding some dwarf goats that will milk through reliably could work well.

Dennis Lanigan wrote:I've made sauerkraut in Fido jars with great success, so I have quite a few of them. I'm going to have access to a lot of apple cider soon and wanted to try and make hard apple cider with what I already have. Anyone try to make hard cider with Fido jars? I'm a little scared they'll explode.

I've made "apple core cider" in Fido jars without fermenting airlocks - it needs to be 'burped' everyday (or maybe twice or more) during the extra bubbly time, and if it's not burped on time it can fizz up a lot, but so far it has been fine under the pressure. If I were making it in larger amounts from juiced apples I'd probably use a glass carboy/demijohn with airlock - these are not very expensive, and the drinks I make in them probably last longer than the apple core cider because they aren't getting exposed to oxygen all the time like a burped fido jar is.

For cooking, any of the animal fats work well. You'd usually need to get the fat from a farmer or butcher and then render it yourself, which is easy to do. Beef fat (tallow) is what I mostly use, lard from outdoor-raised pigs is really good but harder to find where I live.

Ra Kenworth wrote:Oil items that may rust or wrap in cloth soaked in oil
I actually use clarified coconut oil myself because I can work the oil in with my bare hands

That's really good to know that clarified coconut oil will work - I've never seen clarified coconut oil - would ordinary coconut oil work?

Will any kind of oil or fat help to preserve tools?

Leigh Tate wrote:Experiment #1.

I took a look at Kate Downham's hummus recipe and compared it to the one Kevin posted, as well as one I found with Brave browser's AI. All three had similar ingredients, but ChatGPT's added water to thin to a salad dressing consistency. I used the ingredients I had and sort of melded all three recipes.

2 cups canned garbanzo beans
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic
1 tsp dijon mustrd
1/2 tsp Himalayan salt
6 tbsp water

Whirred it up in my blender, adding 1 tablespoon of water at a time until I got a creamy, salad dressing like consistency.



Just taste testing right out of the blender, I wasn't sure I'd like it. It seemed to have too much dijon. But then I tried it on my salad and it was great! I didn't have tahini, which I like and would like to try in another batch. And I have ideas for flavor variety and some other ingredients to switch it up. I think it would make a good dip for veggie sticks too.

I've never added mustard, but I sometimes add cumin or smoked paprika (or sometimes both) and they are really nice in it. Lemon juice is good in it too if you have any on hand.

I have now pressure canned using a wood stove several times.

Here are a few observations and tips:

I am doing this on a proper wood cooking stove. I’m not sure how it would work on a stove designed for heating.

To pressure can on a wood cookstove, I just use the same techniques that I use to adjust the temperature for cooking on it - adding more wood, adjusting the air intake, moving the pot around. I wouldn’t recommend canning on a wood stove unless you know how to cook well on one - if you can sear a steak in a pan or bring a pot to a rolling boil and then keep it at that temperature, then you can probably pressure can on it.

Because you can’t just set the heat and expect it to stay the same as you would on an electric or gas stove, it’s important to be nearby when it’s canning to make sure the pressure doesn’t drop because of the temperature getting lower - it’s not the end of the world if it does, it just means you’re supposed to start the timing again from when it gets back up to pressure again, so it will take more time and maybe get a bit overcooked. Right now I’m in the next room and I can hear the weighted gauge moving around, but I wouldn’t want to go outside for long.

I add some extra water just to make sure it doesn’t boil dry - instead of 3 quarts I add 4. So far there’s still been plenty of water left at the end of canning for 90 minutes so this probably isn’t necessary.

To avoid wasting wood, choose your canning time wisely - it’s best to can during a time when you are happy to keep wood burning in the firebox, not when it’s dying down for the night.

The process of bringing it up to pressure involves getting a decent fire going - any fire that would sear a steak or get a pot to a rolling boil is fine. I’ve used all the 3 main types of firewood that we have and they all work well, as long as I use them in the same way that I would for high heat cooking. During this time, the oven will probably heat up quite a bit, so it’s good to time it with bread baking.

I err on the side of putting too much heat into the canner rather than too little for time when it’s under pressure - the weighted gauge seems to be making a constant noise. Usually when I try to move it off the hottest spot on the stove it seems to quieten down a bit too much for my liking. If there is a healthy fire in the firebox I can usually slow the air intake down, keep the pot on the hottest part of the stove, and it stays under pressure nicely without using much wood.

Adding the extra weight to the regulator and relying on the dial instead might give a better idea about what is happening (I have the Australian version of the Presto canner, which has a dial and weights), I might try this sometime while my canner is still fairly new, but as we can’t get them calibrated here I prefer to rely on the weights in general.