At last, I have successfully baked Sourdough bread. The process from Do/Sourdough was actually quite easy. Yesterday, I made a production sourdough starter which rose nicely in the airing cupboard. I then made a soaker which is the rest of the flour mixed with water and kneaded. It gets mixed messily by hand with the starter, kneaded and then left to rise.

All this went successfully. The dough rose very nicely indeed. Actually, it rose much better than any bread dough I've ever made. But I hit a problem - the dough stuck to the proving bowl. I expected this to happen. The dough sunk a bit but I decided to bake it anyway. This is the first go. I've ended up with a flatter loaf than I expected but who cares. Next time I will use baking tins.

It came out of the oven last night, cooled and was wrapped overnight. Today is a cheat day so I can eat bread. The loaf isn't very high and so I've sliced it diagonally. The bread tastes slightly doughy and I can detect yeast. The crust is chewy. For a first try, I'm very pleased indeed. With olive oil and balsamic vinegar, it's absolutely divine.

Using diagonal slices, I was able to make sandwiches for later on.

The sourdough starter has been put into the fridge for now and I may have another go next week. But for now, I'm happy with my first successful experiment in sourdough.