Meet Aage!

I'd like to introduce you all to my pet yeast, Aage. Why Aage? Well, he's named after Aage Bohr, a Nobel prize-winning physicist and the son of Niels Bohr. Aage and Niels went by the names Jim and Nicholas Baker when they were working on the Manhattan project in the 1940s, so it just kinda seemed quite appropriate. Plus, I think Aage's quite a cool name!Aage is settling in to his new home (although he's just moved from a kitchen cupboard to the fridge, so hopefully he'll be happy there too). I just fed him, so it's time to bake my first ever sourdough loaf (or make a start, at least).

My First Sourdough Loaf
Ingredients
For the sponge

• 250g Strong wholemeal flour
• 300ml Water
• The discarded half of Aage*
  

For the dough

• 300g Flour
• 13g Salt
  

Method

1. Mix the ingredients for the sponge together and put into a clean black bin bag, tucking the end under the bowl.
2. Leave overnight.
3. Add the remaining ingredients and form into a dough.
   
4. Knead until smooth and springy.
5. Form into a round, place back into the bowl and bag and leave to rise for an hour.
6. Tip out, form into a round again and leave to rise again.
7. Deflate the dough and shape into a loaf.
8. Place back in the bag and leave to prove until doubled in size.
9. Bake at the hottest oven possible for 10mins and then turn down to 180C/Gas Mark 4 until done; roughly a further 30-40minutes.

*If you're a bit confused by this, when you feed the sourdough starter, you throw half of it away (or bake with it) and replace the amount you threw away with flour and water. So this probably amounts to about 200-250ml of my sourdough starter.

Here's the sponge!