For those bakers out there, during this circuit breaker period, you may notice that instant yeast or baker’s yeast are often sold out on the supermarket shelves and even at designated bakery supplies stores.
The lack supply of store bought yeast is not going to stop you from creating your favourite bakes during this festive period.
Create your own wild yeast with just two ingredients – Flour and water.
Start your own sourdough starter or wild yeast from scratch and get yourself an imaginary yeast pet that stay happy inside a mason jar with feeding once a week. This is how it works: since wild yeast is present in most unbleached flour, the addition of water helps to activate the wild yeast, the yeast and the lactobacilli helps the fermentation of the dough which creates ethanol and carbon dioxide. Lactic acid is also created during this fermentation. This Lactic acid help to extend the shelve life of your sourdough bread or European bread.
Breads created with this wild yeast taste better and are chewier compared to those store bought bread using instant yeast or baker’s yeast. Wild yeast is great those who love to bake their own sourdough bread and European bread in the comfort of their own home. Create your own cheese boat with melted cheese in the core of sourdough bread or a camembert bread bowl.
Enjoy some eggs Benedict atop a sourdough slice with some strong coffee or tea for breakfast. You will probably have an endless supply of wild yeast if you keep them “well fed”. For some, the sourdough bread might be an acquired taste as it has a sour taste as implied by its name.
What you need for making your own wild yeast: glass cup with muffin cup liners with string or Mason jar with loose lid and the two ingredients. You may use unbleached wholegrain flour, rice flour, wheat flour but for the best results use bread flour if it is available. It is a 7 days process that takes 5 mins of your time daily.
Day 1 – 100 gram of flour plus 150g room temperature water, or in the ratio of 2parts of flour: 3 parts of water. Mix with a spatula till all dry flour is completely mixed into the water.
Cover and leave on kitchen top overnight. The next morning, you should see bubbles forming inside the glass container.
Day 2 – remove most of the matured mixture into another jar leaving only 70 grams of mixture behind. Repeat Day one feeding. Cover and leave on kitchen top overnight.
The matured mixture can be used to make pancakes, waffles or banana bread.
Day 3 to 6 – repeat day 2 feeding and removal of matured starter to another jar.
Day 7 – Your Homemade wild yeast is ready to be used to bake sourdough bread or European breads. Best enjoyed as a bread pot or with toppings.
Sliced this sourdough bread to ½ inch thick and top them with creamy smashed avocado and runny half boiled egg, with a dash of peppercorn and sprigs of pea shoots. If you bake weekly, keep the matured yeast and wild yeast alive and active in the fridge. Feed it once a week by stirring water and flour as the above proportions. Before using your sourdough starter, if you notice signs of moulds, discolouration or foul smell, please discard and do a fresh batch of sourdough starter. Eat well and enjoy baking!