Yesterday I freestyled sourdough bread from my own starter. It has a mild sour taste, but I have to work on my proportions. I’ve too much water. The loaf splayed out into a shape reminiscent of a Frisbee (with a slightly peaked dome).

I’ve been baking bread regularly since the beginning of the year. The recipe I’ve used comes from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. It’s a wonderful book with a brilliant shortcut to making bread: Make a bunch of dough beforehand, and keep it chilled. When you’re ready to bake, tear off a glob, form it and bake at 450 degrees until done.

Their recipe falls into the idiot-proof category. Broken down to atoms, it is: a little more than twice as much flour as water, and for every two cups of flour, a half tablespoon of both yeast and salt. For instance, you might use just over six cups of flour, three cups of water, and a tablespoon and a half of yeast and salt. Those proportions have been yielding three loaves over a week and a half that are ample to feed two people. It’s simple and easily scaled up or down, and the dough keeps for almost two weeks.

After two months of baking this recipe, two things happened. First, my bread-baking confidence grew. Second, I ran out of yeast. The natural extension of both those situations: Culture a sourdough sponge. One part flour, one part warm water, and I was on my way.

After a few days of feeding, stirring and nursing it, it had the requisite bubbles and looked like pancake batter. Good. On to the next step