Yeah- I jumped on the bandwagon. Admittedly, I am a bit late to the sourdough bread making extravaganza…but I’m here! Realizing that we are going to be at-home indefinitely, I finally decided to tackle my fear and make a sourdough starter. I have tried in the past and failed, but this time I was going to give it my all. 
This is Hercules (named after Hercules Mulligan of Hamilton fame!) my sourdough starter. I researched and read about how to get the best starter going, and I finally ordered some rye flour off Amazon and voila- Hercules was born! I read somewhere that you should name your starter, since it requires the attention of a small child, so Tay came up with the perfect moniker for my bad-ass starter.
Once the starter was “sour” enough, it was time to make my first loaf of bread. I looked at a couple recipes and came across this one from The Clever Carrot. There is truly no difficulty in making sourdough sandwich bread- I thought the hardest part was the starter! The key to good sourdough is giving it enough time. From the starter, the the rising…this isn’t a fast process. But, being at home, I found it simple to tend to my bread while doing other things around the house. My timer on my AppleWatch would buzz- and off to the kitchen I went!
My bread came out perfectly…and my house smelled amazing (added bonus!) The first loaf I made lasted about 10 minutes before Tay and I were cutting into it and slathering thick slices with butter…that was delightful! My second loaf I showed a little more restraint and let it cool completely before I sliced it into actually sandwich bread sized slices.
I have made a couple loaves by now and I don’t know if I will ever go back to store-bought bread. The flavor of homemade is a million times better and in the end, it doesn’t require that much effort.
right turn ahead 