Baking Bread

For much of my adult life, baking bread has played an integral role in my collection of days. Bread-baking got me through the last dying days of my first marriage, as I made bread several times a week, selling it to friends and neighbors, and stashing the cash for the rainy day I sensed was looming on the horizon. My bread has also been given away as gifts, often as a way for me to tell someone “thank you” or to introduce myself to someone new. But more than anything, baking bread has been a connection to my mother who taught me how to bake bread, and a form of therapy for me. There is nothing like the aroma of a house where fresh loaves of bread are cooling on racks in the kitchen! And the rhythm of kneading bread is calming and soothing when I need something to center me.

Since we moved into our barn home six years ago, I have struggled with my bread baking. I had a sour dough starter that I brought with me from our former home, and began feeding it in anticipation of baking bread in my new treehouse kitchen. The starter bubbled and had the lovely sour smell as it was supposed to have, but when I baked my first batch of bread, it didn’t rise. I didn’t lose hope, and tried again. The second batch was just as flat. Undaunted, I tossed out the starter and began again. After a few more tries with the same results, I gave up and didn’t bake sourdough bread for the next five years. Instead, I concentrated on my jelly making during the spring and summer, and in between made loaves of banana bread and blueberry bread, with moderate success.

Last month I decided to try my hand at sourdough again. I started my starter, and nursed it for a couple of weeks to make sure it was doing what it was supposed to do. But, with my first batch of bread, I had the same results as I had before- flat bread- very tasty, but too dense for my liking. As the researcher that I am, I went to the internet and began reading about sourdough. I learned that some geographic regions have better indigenous yeasts than others, and that growing the yeast that makes the best sourdough bread is related to the yeasts that are in the air in a particular place. I concluded that my five acres of land is lacking in yeast! I also read that patience is a key, and it sometimes takes more time for the yeast in the sourdough starter to become active enough for making good bread. It was now up to me to supply the air with yeast spores to make up for my yeast-deprived acreage!

As I was reading, I found a recipe for a different kind of sourdough starter than the one I was using. I printed out the recipe, headed into my kitchen, and mixed up a batch. I also got out an old heating pad, and placed it on my kitchen counter to supply needed warmth (but not too hot!) for the starter to draw in the yeast it needed. In the meantime, I found a recipe for a good basic white yeast bread, which I mixed up and was delighted to see rising as it was supposed to do! I felt that maybe the yeast spores from this bread might help my sourdough starter.

The day finally arrived last week for me to take a deep breath and try making sourdough bread again, this time from the new starter. It worked! The bread rose once, and then again, and baked into a lovely round loaf. My next loaf didn’t rise as much as the first (I blame it on the cold snap and all the rain we've had), but I feel like I am on my way again. I can't wait to try it again in a few days to see how it works!

I am hopeful that my days will once again include baking and sharing my bread.