Auntie Leila's no-discard sourdough starter

Housewives bake bread! Let's start natural fermentation!

The School for Housewives is starting with … starter!

Here on this Substack I will try to keep things very simple. If you want all the whys and wherefores and musings, go to my blog, Like Mother, Like Daughter. If you want my musings on whatever topic comes to mind, go to Happy Despite Them, where you will also find the podcast I do with my husband, Phil Lawler.

If you want the in-depth discussion of exactly what I did when I started a new starter just for my readers (I’ve been making sourdough and naturally fermented bread for 5 years now) and exactly what you need, go to this post, which gives you the whole first week all at once.

If you just want today’s step, here you go:

Day 1:

In a nice clean jar (1 pint, wide mouth, or similar from your recycling), mix 3 teaspoons (1 tablespoon) of bread flour (you can use all purpose flour for now if that's what you have) with 2 teaspoons of warm water. Stir it up and cover it with the jar lid. 

There's so little in here that I am mixing it with a slender knife! There’s only a little because we don’t want to have to discard any.

That's all you need to get started.

I will publish the next step tomorrow!