Sourdough Bread (with a wild yeast starter)

I adore bread and always seek out local bakeries and bakers, recently I listened to a great podcast about wild yeast and it fascinated me. So I grew some wild yeast sourdough starter, I used this recipe from King Arthur flour   it seems to be a standard approach, you start with wholewheat flour as its more likely to contain yeast and you feed it water and then all purpose flour daily then, as it grows twice a day. Day 3 was amazing for us and we thought we had it and then it slowed down a lot just very lightly bubbling. I chatted to Ali Trairatana, RD @intuitively_ali on instagram and she kindly encouraged us to be patient and give it time, so for the next week I fed the starter and waited I would say it took a good 10 days to get going. The first loaf of bread I made was fair but didn't rise all that well, I used a recipe from the clever carrot, and baked in a dutch oven but maybe the starter needed a little longer. The next day I tried again and based the recipe on one from the BBC food, I let the first rise go overnight and gave a longer second rise. 

Ingredients; 

• 500g/1lb 2oz unbleached white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
• 300g/10½oz, one cup sourdough starter
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 teaspoon of olive oil to coat the bread so that it doesn't stick 

Method:

1. Mix together the flour, sourdough starter and about a cup of water together with the sugar and the salt and knead for about 10 minutes until it is very soft and stretchy.  
2. place the dough in a bowl and cover with wrap and let it rise over night, it will double in size.
3. Remove the dough and make two some round loaves with it and put onto a baking sheet with a little cornmeal underneath to stop it sticking and cover with a tea cloth and leave to rise for another 2-3 hours. 
4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and put a few ice cubes or cold water into a baking tin and place in the bottom of the oven to create steam. Now score two or three times on the top of the loaf and put into the oven.  Bake for 35–40 minutes until brown and a crust has formed and the loaves sound hollow when tapped.
5. put on a cooling wire to cool. 
6. enjoy and be proud of yourself!

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