My sourdough baking experiments so far…

Home made sourdough on a breadboard with a slice on its side
Bread number 3 with the instagram filter – Yum!

Don’t worry I am not going to start posting about baking sourdough… This is mainly some people were asking and offering tips and even starters. Thanks but honestly I think I’m doing alright so far…

I said a few posts ago, one of the things I have been up to is trying to bake sourdough bread. Baking isn’t my thing as I’m more of a person who doesn’t follow recipes and measure things. I even had a new years resolution to bake a cake a while ago. A few people offered a number of pointers and helpful links. But I have just gone off and done it with a sourdough starter from my old friend Paul.

So far its been quite something…

Home made Sourdough bread on a breadboard sliced in half
Attempt one

Here is my very first one, it was pretty dry I expect because I didn’t put enough olive oil in it. I also used garlic salt because I didn’t actually have standard sea salt believe it or not. I was quite impressed it actually turned out in a form I could eat. It was great with large junks of cheese.

I hated using my hands to fold the uncooked bread and I made the mistake of not having  cornflower, which meant it stuck to my hands like clay.

Home made Sourdough bread on a breadboard sliced with a knife
Attempt two

The second one, I fixed the problem of olive oil and sea salt. I also added more Rye flower to the mix (2/5’s  instead of 1/5). This loaf was really good and even my partner enjoyed it toasted with her Vegan butter.

I of course got cornflower too, to stop the clay like sticking.

Home made Sourdough bread on a breadboard with slice cut
Attempt three

Number three was amazing. With all knowledge of number two but I skipped a step when folding it, by accident. It made clear to me how I didn’t need to follow a set recipe to the letter, as I messed with the weights and percentage of white and rye flower again. As you can see it was closer to 50/50.

Home made Sourdough bread fresh out the oven in a cooking bowl
Attempt four

Number four with seeds got a bit too big as I wanted to see if I could use more sourdough starter. My measurements were pretty loose but I haven’t tasted it yet. It was pretty wet and I was thinking I should add more flower to dry it out. I haven’t tried it yet but now I finished number 3, I’ll give it a taste tomorrow.

Between 3 and 4, I was worried the sourdough starter would be a pain especially as I was out of the country quite a bit during summer and conference seasons. Now I have quite a bit of sourdough starter, hence why I tried to create a bigger loaf on attempt number 4.

Generally, I’m thinking maybe I should have done this much earlier (during the pandemic is when a lot of people picked it up) but its slight easier as I work mainly from home running the business now. I haven’t bought any Pollen sourdough for a while now.

My New Years Resolutions 2019

Ian PORTRAIT at work

Its been 11 years since I’ve been blogging my new years resolutions and I’m still going.

Following my review of last year… here’s my New Years Resolutions for 2019; which follows on from 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010.2009, 2008 ones.

  1. Head further a field with the scooter
    Missed this last year, so its time for a ride into Europe hopefully before the UK leaves Europe! I have plans to stay with a friend in Rotterdam then drive around and maybe into Belgium & Germany for some coasting.
  2. Ride a roller coaster in yet another country
    Very fitting with the previous one but if not, I like the idea of checking out more theme parks in Europe especially after the huge success of 2018.
  3. Look after myself better
    I generally look after myself but its time to be thoughtful and conscious about this all. I’m getting older and should really spend more time thinking about myself with an eye on the future.
  4. Spend more time in the UK
    Ok the last year I spent a lot of time outside the UK. On rough count I hit about 12 weeks this year outside the North of England alone (but I do go to Bristol and London quite a bit). I can’t believe I took almost 30 different flights this year! Although I love it and take care of myself, I have to admit thats a lot. So I’m going to try staying closer to home for this year.
  5. Enter the bake off at work
    My work place does regular bake off’s and the theme sometimes is something interesting which I could do bake/cook around. So I’ve challenged myself to join one of the bake offs this year
  6. Explore more about the brain using neuroscience
    I do want to explore around this but now I binned off Funzing recently, so need to look a little wider. Maybe setup some search filters, keep an eye on eventbrite and meetups.
  7. Do more with my Estonian e-residency
    As said in my review of last year, I have a task to extend my e-residency card to 5 years which I need to do ASAP, likely in the next few weeks. After that I also have a task to look into self-signing using my Estonian e-residency.
  8. Explore the future of decentralised and distributed systems
    This one is a combination of 2 of my  previous resolutions. Exploring the future of online dating with decentralise more. So more mastodon and more exploring Indie web technologies like Bridgy and Kinds. I’ve been really interested in these things for a long while.
  9. Make some changes to the flat
    Its been a while and although I made some great changes to the living room, its time to focus on the bedrooms. I can’t believe I got a configurable IKEA desk from over 18 years ago, which needs to be replaced as it’s too big and I hardly use it now. I’d like to get the server in a better position and remove some tired furniture.
  10. Host film nights and more dinner parties at mine
    I have a task to sort out my current projector or get a new one (this is looking more likely, any hints on cheap long throw projectors is welcomed). I already have a 130inch projector screen but it needs to go back to IKEA as the mechanism is broken. Once this is all done, then it makes total sense to host film nights.
    On top of this, its been a while since I had a party at mine, so maybe I’m moving from party to dinner parties?
  11. Work on the dating book
    I have been working on a book around my dating experience for a long time and its about time I just got it written. Especially since Hannah offered her copy editing skills to help make it a real book. So far its been great I need to write more
  12. Be a stronger advocate for Team Human
    This is a follow-up to previous years. The podcast I listen to Team Human is a celebration of ourselves as people (messy, diverse, etc) not robots (perfect, tireless, etc). This has importance for the problems we are all facing around diversity and inclusion. It also ties into the mental health epidemic we are seeing too. My recent addition to the inclusive top 100; is perfect timing?