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The Road To A Perfect Sourdough Loaf!

Sourdough

The road to perfecting baking a good sourdough loaf has certainly been a long one for me! In 2019 I began the quest for the perfect loaf. Of course I tried to do it myself, impulsively I purchased a bread maker from Aldi and failed miserably! I looked up no fail, no knead bread making – failed again! I really wanted to get this right though, as I had read a review of a property in Tasmania who served fresh, hot bread to their guests & how much they loved it, so I thought why not, that sounds like an awesome idea. At the beginning of 2020 once I’d started renovating the house to transform it into what is now Rosemont House Luxury B&B it was time to get serious as the finish line was fast approaching for opening and I needed time to perfect this skill (like 6 months).  

I needed a professional!

Like all good things you are trying to find, whether you think it, voice it or look it up on the internet, a post appeared on FB – a sourdough bread making workshop no less, with Christine from Christine’s Cooking Classes in Korumburra. The price looked amazing @ $110 for the day.. Perfect! Then (of course) COVID hit & poor Christine had to cancel her sourdough workshops for a few months! Finally she was able to start again & I was in one of the first workshops. There were 6 of us in total, socially distancing of course (no masks needed then)! It was a great day & I was completely impressed with the bread Christine serviced at lunch thinking finally it’s going to happen, I’m going to make bread just like this! 

Everything went well with Christine telling me I was a natural bread kneader, fantastic! At the end of the day we were instructed to take our bread babies home (who were snuggled away in a cane banneton basket) so they could continue to rise & we could cook them later that night or the next morning. Christine, very gently, reminded me to treat it like a baby, as I put something on top of my dough walking out the door, they weren’t called dough babies for nothing!

Two hours later I called Christine (hysterically I might add!) to explain that I had arrived home to discover that something managed to slip onto the baby in the backseat all the way home (therefore 2hrs of wasted rising!) AND as I was struggling to get through the door, with hands full, that the “baby” had hit the deck, upside down! Chrisitne calmly explained that it should be fine……. I’m not sure that it was! 

I then spent the next month trying to perfect the sourdough making but my loaves always seemed to be dense & flat so onto the phone I got to Christine who informed me that I “would get the feel of it” and to keep going! I then explained to Christine (who I must say is mighty patient) that I wouldn’t “get the feel of it” because I wasn’t that sort of cook! I would keep doing the same thing expecting it to work but it clearly wasn’t going to! (definitiion of stupid????)

Have I said how amazing Christine from Christine’s Cooking Classes in Korumburra is? She went above & beyond and spent a whole day, on call, for my sourdough making at every step of the process & we perfected it together that day plus a few extra hints like use warm water & maybe my oven wasn’t hot enough at 180! And poof…. Now I am an expert sourdough baker – well the guests at Rosemont House Luxury B&B tell me it’s pretty good as well as my sourdough biscuits I bake for cheese platters. 
Thank you Christine…you are a marvel! And if you want to partake in one of Christine’s Cooking Classes head over to her facebook page or find her online at www.christinescookingclasses.com.au. She is VERY patient & it is an absolute pleasure to partake of one of her workshops & you too can be an expert sourdough baker!