Baking rejects assemble: Paul Hollywood would be horrified at my sad attempt at sourdough

If making sourdough this year cemented your lack of ability to bake after many attempts went South, you are not alone. Now, I've realised why many-a-starter kit were abandoned, and left to gather dust

Sourdough is a tasty by tricky treat to master

Sourdough is wonderful. It is an elite bread that has exploded in popularity in the last few years, and if you've tasted it, I do not need to tell you why. So, when I discovered my gluten intolerance was not flared up by this baked beauty, I was overjoyed. This is no understatement. Yelping and 'woohoo-ing' were both involved. A small and mundane discovery for many, but for a gal restricted to Genius' crumbly loaf, it was a revelation. Though I soon realised that making this delightful doughy delicacy is a whole other ball game.

The first batch

When my mum messaged saying she was jumping on the sourdough starter bandwagon last June, I couldn't wait to try her first batch.

It looked so easy. Although, everything does when you follow a recipe. A bit of this, and bit of that, a knead here, a pull there. Keep it moving. Then prove it - in the waiting and rising sense. It was a doddle; for most people who had the willpower to keep going and become a master of sourdough, and my mother, who was a baking extraordinaire. Hers became a lovely, bouncy, fluffy sourdough that rivalled Co-op's finest.

But for me? Every attempt was a failure.

In a recent survey by baking brand, Dr. Oetker, two-thirds of respondents said that baking helped to better their mood. And so, to help with my mental health (and to stop me stealing her bread), my mum gave me half of her sourdough starter to start my very own little fermentation baby. I was determined to make it work. Sending me a message via email (we were now in strict lockdown, no county crossing etc), I had the recipe and pointers in front of me, what could possibly go wrong?

My first mistake was trying it with gluten free flour. Everyone knows how temperamental GF flour is and I was warned against it, but did I listen? Not in the slightest. The attempt was feeble. I was nervous. About flour? You're just as confused as I was.

Setting up the weighing station, I plopped the glass mixing bowl on my pathetic Asda scales and measured out the correct (or so I thought) proportions. 300g of flour and 300g of warm water, plus a pinch of salt. I left it to rise.

And rise it did. It grew to about three times the size of the original mix. 'Was that normal?' I thought as I sent a picture to my mum. It was not. My proportions were completely out of whack. They were meant to be half of what I'd used. But I wasn't going to throw it away just yet. Oh no. Remember, I was determined.

Rise and shine

Rolling it around in the mixing bowl and leaving it to prove for about 12 hours, teasing it out of the bowl was my next hurdle. It was sticky, bitty and not binding. Its colour and texture resembled something even the strongest of stomachs would not be able to handle. Still, I ploughed on. Giving up on the kneading step after multiple attempts (needing a wine at that stage), I spooned the slurry mix into a bread tin, topping it with seeds to cover up the utter carnage that had been created. After an hour in the oven at 180 degrees it still wasn't cooked. Slightly charcoaled on top, and definitely inedible, I sunk my teeth in anyway.

The taste was... Metallic. The crust was lovely and bread-y. Crunchy, not very crumby, but as you got closer to the middle, god it was awful. Imagine small pellets of metal that had been crushed up and added to the centre... Not the tangy texture I was going for.

It's safe to say no-one was subject to that loaf ever again. And while the experience was meditative (according to a recent article by Dr Patricia Farrell on Medium, baking can be a form of meditation), from the measuring to the mixing to, even, the cleaning, the outcome was downright frustrating.

"If it doesn't fit in your day-to-day life, then you should just give up," said my mother a week after the bread bait. Now, I'm not a fan of quitting, but I'm also not a fan of failing, and so, this time, I think, I'll just leave it to the professionals. And hey, after a global pandemic filled with ordinary folk thinking they're the next Paul Hollywood (and Kudos to them), the pros need our help now more than ever, so I'll get back to doing my part.