Twinkle, twinkle, little (sourdough) Star 🌟🌟🌟

I hope you have been enjoying my ‘What would you feed me?’ series so far, in case you missed any from the last three weeks, do have a look at what Prudy, Susan and Selma made for me…

I’ve been so overwhelmed by such wonderful recipes!

I will bring you another recipe next week, today I want to tell you a story about the wonderful international blogging community at its best..

Nine years ago, a lovely lady called Celia, in Australia, created a sourdough starter, christened Priscilla. Priscilla has been the beginning of many successful loaves of bread and baking, and recently Celia dried out some of the starter and sent out the dried granules to many of her fellow blog friends around the world, with instructions on how to revive the starter and start baking. One of the recipients was my lovely Selma, who named her starter Twinkle and also went on to bake some wonderful loaves of bread. Selma also dried out some of her starter and sent out packets to her blog friends…including me!

Apparently the most successful sourdough starters are named, so I named mine Star. I always choose stars for everything, and what a perfect name for the daughter of Twinkle, hey?

Selma also sent comprehensive instructions on how to revive Star and how to bake sourdough loaves; I was a bit nervous as it was a first for me, and I’ve seen lots of the other bloggers’ amazing loaves, but I was also very excited to make it work!! I followed the instructions and started to revive Star and she bubbled up wonderfully..

And when she was ready, followed the instructions again to bake a loaf..the dough proved beautifully overnight and became a wonderful loaf of bread..

..I cannot tell you just how proud I was!! I was grinning from ear to ear, telling everyone who would listen about my first sourdough loaf! I tweeted photos, texted photos, Instagrammed photos, bored my immediate and extended family with my baking feats….like a proud Mum!! Luckily, my boys loved the bread, which makes me even prouder!!! And yes, even I had some, topped with za’atar..

I baked two more loaves this weekend (Celia warned me it’s addictive and she’s right!!) and they were even better!!!

Graham and Ben ate the entire loaf in one day, they just love crusty bread and this one came out really crusty, and I wrapped up the other loaf for my sister in law..

..who immediately sliced into it and sent a big thumbs up!!!

It’s been such a fun and fabulous journey, and something I would never have tried without having this blog and being part of this community, just another reason why I love it!! It’s so amazing how my sourdough loaf was created as a direct result of one started 9 years ago in Australia, I think that’s just brilliant and I love the connection that Celia has created between all of us who have received starters from her wonderful Priscilla, and that Selma has now continued with Twinkle. What Stars!!! And the support and encouragement they have both given me has been absolutely lovely, thank you ladies xx

For more details and directions about baking sourdough loaves, Celia and Selma can tell you so much more than I can, so do check out their blogs…I’m off to put my next loaf in the oven…isn’t that what everyone does at 6am in the morning???? oh no….it’s just me then…;)

Have a great day, from me and my Bob xx