Exponential Growth

Images from the Breadwinner bread fair. Photographs by Julian Hughes.

A few weeks ago I packaged up some Loughborough Culture and posted it to the Czech Republic. Finally I received news that it had reached its destination and survived the journey in tact. I look forward to hearing tales of baking from Pacov.

I have been trying out variations to the basic  sourdough bread recipe. I have added honey, raisins and seeds to make a sweet rye loaf. Probably the most unusual loaf I’ve made so far is this nettle and seaweed bread – adding fresh nettle leaves and rehydrated seaweed to the dough. It was surprisingly good.

Deborah, a Culture Caretaker from Loughborough, just sent me this fantastic picture of a loaf of sourdough bread baked in a flower pot. Please send pictures of your bread experiements and any recipes you have found or created.

A Culture Caretaker who had been studying in Loughborough attempted to take his sourdough culture with him to Japan. Sadly, the culture was confiscated when he changed flights at Shanghai airport. We can only hope that one of the airport authorities recognised the cultural significance of the small pot of slightly smelly liquid and took it home to make bread.