Making Your Own Yeast and Black Garlic Bread

Photo provided by Sadiq Food Photography (Click here)

Making your own yeast in a simple and lost art form within home economists. It's surprisingly easy and makes a much tastier loaf than dried yeast. It's just a matter of time and patience, but once you have created your own yeast you can keep it for years and years like aged whisky. When your homemade yeast is running low, simply add more water and flour into the starter. This will feed the fermentation process and will keep the good bacteria growing. To ferment the water, you can use just about anything from dried cherries to grapefruit. For the sake of this recipe I'll use sultanas as most people have a bag somewhere in their pantry.

Under the yeast starter recipe I've attached one of my preferred bread loaf recipes, I make this recipe 3 or 4 times a week for the soup bread at Kaffeine. It's also amazing toasted and served with sliced tomato and sprinkled with salt and pepper. There is also black garlic in the bread, this is probably a new ingredient for most people however it's quite easy to buy and most supermarkets now stock it. Black garlic starts as a regular white bulb, after a little heating and left to ferment, the garlic becomes sweet, dark and jellied. The best part is it has twice as much antioxidants and leaves no smell or bad breath.

Natural Yeast Starter:
100g sultanas
750ml filtered water
1 tablespoon sugar
Plain flour

Method:
Place all ingredients in a 1 litre jar and stir, screw on the lid. Leave the jar to sit for one week at room temperature and give the jar a little shake twice a day.
When the water has fermented, sieve out the sultanas and pour water into a bowl, stir in flour until you have a thick wet paste. Spoon yeast back into jar and screw on the lid. Leave to sit in the fridge for 24 hours before using.

Photo provided by Sadiq Food Photography (Click here)

Black Gralic and Seeded Loaf:
750g strong flour
50g sugar
1 tablespoon sea salt
4 cloves black garlic
1 tablespoon linseeds
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
20g pumplin seeds
40g walnut pieces
100ml buttermilk
350ml warm water
3 tablespoon extra vigin olive oil
2 tablespoons of yeast starter

Method:
In a large bowl that attaches to a kitchen mixer add all ingredients, then place bowl in mixer and attach a dough hook. Knead the dough together on a low setting for 1 minute then turn up the speed to medium and knead for 5 minutes. Grease a large bowl with a little olive oil and scrap dough into bowl, wrap the whole bowl throughly with cling film and place bowl in a dark place for 24 hours.
Once the dough has proved turn out on a flour bench and knock out the air and knead until a smooth ball forms. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and put the ball of dough on tray. Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour and cover with a dry tea towel. Put the loaf in a warm place, near a sunny window or on top of a heating oven. Leave the dough to prove for 1-2 hours to double in size.
Heat the oven to 200ºC and place a large tray of water on the lower shelf of oven, this will help the dough get a nice crisp crust. When the dough is proven, bake for 30 minutes, and to test if the loaf is baked, turn the bread upside down and tap the bottom, if there is a hollow sound the loaf is ready. Leave to cool before cutting.